


You Asked For It

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multi, Romance, Shorts, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:10:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 533
Words: 158,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A random collection of drabbles and somewhat-longer-than-drabbles based on prompts received on Tumblr. Mostly Phrack, but a few surprises here and there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #44. “If you die, I’m gonna kill you.” Requested by sheldonslog and pirategirlofcollingwood.

Phryne pressed the palms of her kidskin driving gloves flat against the bullet wound, struggling to stop the flow of blood. Mortar fire exploded in the back of her brain, ten years distant. An ominous red blossom bloomed beneath her hands.

“Just lie quiet, Jack. The ambulance is coming.”

“Miss Fisher…”

“And I’m the one who doesn’t listen?”

“Phryne, I—”

She shut her ears against the harsh struggle for breath. “Shut up. You can tell me later.”

“I—”

“I swear to God and all His angels, Jack Robinson, if you die on me now, I will kill you.”

He managed a ghost of a smile at that, and she saw that he would live, if he knew what was good for him.


	2. Evidence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #1. “Come over here and make me.” Requested by michele02132, crazycatschickenlady, and pirategirlofcollingwood.

Jack flicked his fingers in a ‘hand it over’ gesture. Phryne held the little roll of film protectively against her bosom and looked dignified and affronted. “No. I’m not your Special Constable anymore.”

“But those photographs were taken while investigating a case, and you _did_ confiscate them in your role as Special Constable. Therefore they are the property of the Victoria Police Force, and once again, Miss Fisher, I find that you are withholding evidence from me.” His expression was entirely nondescript, the perfect detective’s face, but Phryne had the distinct impression that he was laughing at her.

She fixed him with a glare that was both icy and devilish. “You want it that badly? Fine.” With a dainty flick of her wrist, she dropped the film down her blouse's décolletage. “Come and get it.”

Jack slowly rose from his chair. 

What she’d told Angela Lombard ended up being true. It was _so_ much better when Jack used his teeth.


	3. Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#36. “I wish I could hate you.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by michele02132.
> 
> I seem to be settling into a nice pattern of "angst, fluff, angst, fluff" so far.

“It would be easier,” Phryne whispered, curled up in her chair in her darkened parlour. “It’s so much easier to hate people than it is to love them.”

Jack said nothing. He wasn’t there; he had left hours ago, with no indication of whether he would ever come back. 

She would rather he hated her, than loved her. Then she could return his feelings without an ounce of regret for what she had lost, only a sense of relief that she had dodged yet another dangerous man. There had been many, in her life. 

But the only thing dangerous about Jack was that he loved her enough to let her go. 

And Phryne couldn’t stand being left behind.


	4. Hidden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#47. “No one needs to know.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by michele02132.

Phryne smiled up at Jack. “You see, there’s plenty of room for me.”

“As tempting as the idea is…” He watched her smile widen and regretted having said that. “Unfortunately, you cannot hide under my desk while the Commissioner is sitting on the other side of it.”

“But I need to know what he says!”

“I will tell you what he says. Afterward. I’ve already promised.”

Her smile became dry. “We both know you’re going to censor whatever he has to tell you.”

“It well may be confidential.”

“Hmm,” said Phryne lightly, and trailed one elegantly-manicured fingernail over the top of Jack’s shoe and up his sock and beneath his trouser cuff. “I could always make it worth your while… And the Commissioner would never know…”

“Are you seriously suggesting…?” Dear God, she was. “No. No, absolutely not.” Jack stooped and lifted her up quickly, before she noticed how very rapidly his body had responded to the very idea. “If for no other reason than, if you _do_ , I won’t hear a single word the Commissioner has to say.”

She let out a disappointed little sigh. “Some other time, then?”

“…If you leave, right now, I will consider it.”

He watched her gather her things and walk out the door, with a cheeky little wave as she exited the station. 

At some point during the Commissioner’s harangue, Jack realized he should have let her stay.


	5. Looks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#22. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by balticprincess and zenobia-at-blithedale.

“A marriage is still a marriage, Miss Fisher.”

“Especially to a man of honor.”

They toast one another and drink in companionable silence. 

It is the answer to a question Phryne has been debating how to pursue, or even if she should. A married man who spends as much time with a woman as Inspector Robinson spends with her, and yet does not mention his wife at least once, even when lovers and husbands and wives are invariably the subjects of their cases, is a man who is likely married only in name. 

He is unfailingly courteous, even when he is rude. His objections to her presence have everything to do with _her_ and nothing to do with her sex. He never presumes, or assumes, anything. When he looks her in the eye, it is with respect and annoyance. All other emotions are controlled. It’s a triumph for Phryne when she can make the fondness she knows he feels for her break through. 

When he looks at her at other times, when he thinks her attention is elsewhere, she can see the longing. A desire for her body, an aching for a woman in his bed. It’s an itch Phryne guesses hasn’t been scratched in a very long time. 

She wouldn’t mind obliging him. She sees the promise in Jack’s mouth, in his hands, in his attention to detail and his ability, however grudging he is according to procedure, to let her have the lead. And she feels, in the weight of his eyes on her back and thighs and the curve of her throat, how badly he wants her to make that first move. 

He wouldn’t accept it, though, if she did.


	6. Double Booked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #6. “Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?” Requested by ladygrayluvs, omgimsarahtoo and hello-beaniebeanie.

“Does there need to be a reason?” Phryne’s smile was calm and serene and a little sleepy, and the sheet she was holding demurely across her bosom was not quite doing the job. She seemed slightly surprised to see him, but glad. 

“Well, usually…”

“Actually…” Her smile became the tiniest bit contrite. “I wasn’t aware that this was _your_ bed. This is the room the hotel brought my luggage to.”

“…Ah. Unfortunately, Miss Fisher, it’s also the room the hotel brought _my_ luggage to.”

“Oh dear, that does leave us in a quandary.” She shrugged, dislodging the sheet further and giving Jack an appreciable view of one small, beautiful breast. “They must have double-booked. It is a very busy time for them, what with the holiday and the policemen’s conference…”

“Strange that in all that confusion, you and I should be the ones to end up sharing a room.”

“The… whims of fate?” Phryne suggested, eyes wide and guileless and her pink lips at their very softest and most inviting. 

Jack replied with the same note-quite-there smile he had once given her over a bottle of wine, and reached for his tie.


	7. Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #42. “I swear it was an accident!” Requested by ladygrayluvs and omgimsarahtoo.

“No.”

“But Jack, we both enjoy it so much…” She slid her hand temptingly along the sides of his bare thighs, enjoying the contrast between his warm hard muscles and the soft cool linen of her bed sheets. Her head hovered over his groin. “And you did say it was a new experience for you…”

His member twitched and strained towards her mouth, but Jack’s expression was cool. “Yes. Yes, it was. So was you biting me.”

“It won’t happen again, I promise. I’m sorry, I got carried away.”

“The first time might’ve been an accident. The second time, though…”

Phryne dipped her head to the crease of his thigh and nuzzled it softly. “Some men enjoy the sensation. And you’re so adept in other ways, I simply… forgot. I really am sorry.”

He tangled his head in her hair and redirected her attention back to where it had started. “Don’t apologize, Miss Fisher, it just confuses me. But. No teeth, this time, please.”


	8. Tight Fit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #49. “Well this is awkward...” Requested by ladygrayluvs and omgimsarahtoo.

If Jack had to be brutally honest, then yes, he’d fantasized many times about ravishing Phryne Fisher in a broom closet. 

But in all of his fantasies, the closet had locked from the _inside_. And been a bit roomier.

“Could this damned thing be any tighter?” he muttered, trying to press himself back to let Phryne squeeze round him. Well, she was the one with the lock-picking skills. 

“There are a lot of ways I could reply to that, you know,” Phryne murmured. He could almost imagine the amused glint in her envy-green eyes. “I’ll, ah, need your help. To reach my picklocks. I can’t move my arms easily.”

“Where are—oh.” He swallowed. “Can’t you fish them out after you kneel down?”

“Well, I suppose I _could_ …”

“Is this really the best time for you to try and seduce me?”

“Considering that we could both die of old age before you get around to it?”

Jack glared at the smudged outline that was Phryne Fisher. Quickly, refusing to acknowledge what he was doing, he dipped his fingers under the collar of her blouse and into her brassiere, and extricated the tools. “Here,” he growled, pressing them into her hand, “now get us out of here.”

Before he could brace himself, she had pressed a quick little kiss to his cheek. Then she shimmied and slunk until she was facing away from him, and with a bit of maneuvering, crouched down to attend to the lock. 

Which, naturally, because long experience had taught Jack that God had a particularly vicious sense of humour, caused her shapely derrière to bounce and wriggle ever so slightly and ever so rhythmically against Jack’s already painful erection.

Somewhere in Heaven, the stern Presbyterian grandfather he’d been named for was laughing at him.


	9. A Favour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#25. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.” (Mac & Jack)](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

The whiskey Detective Inspector Robinson had poured for her was smooth, rich, and undoubtedly expensive. Too expensive, in fact, for this to be merely a friendly drink. “Whatever it is you want me to talk Phryne out of,” Mac said bluntly, “I’m not doing it.”

“Astonishingly, this has nothing to do with Miss Fisher.” Jack folded his hands on his blotter and fixed Mac with a doleful blue gaze. He took a deep breath. “I need a favour.”

Mac pursed her lips. “I’m listening.”

“The City Coroner, Dr. Bernard Johnson, has resigned his position, apparently out of loyalty to former Chief Commissioner Sanderson. We’re looking for a new coroner, but in the meantime, we need someone to fill the position temporarily, and quickly. Immediately, in fact.” 

“I find it hard to believe you’re having so much trouble that you need to come to me.” Mac swirled the amber liquid in her glass, trying not to show her mounting excitement.

Jack shrugged and looked forlorn. “It’s not an easy job, and it doesn’t pay especially well. The young ones don’t have the experience needed, and the experienced ones have their own practices to tend to, and aren’t willing to get hauled out of bed at all hours to be called to a murder scene.” He gestured as he spoke, with the large, well-marked hands that always drew her anatomist’s eye. The hidden delicacy of his phalanges was so unusual in a man, and the loose elegance of his carpal bones was hypnotic. She wondered if he would be put off if she asked to sketch his hands. “I’ve spoken to the Deputy Commissioner about you. He’s already aware of the invaluable assistance you provided us on the Kevin Bradley case. And,” he added, as dry as a martini, “you are adept at working with Miss Fisher, which I consider a tremendous asset.”

Mac forbore to mention that such a quality did actually have ‘something to do with Miss Fisher,’ but she conceded the point. “Phryne’s objections to Dr. Johnson are legion,” she agreed. “And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t prepared to do some very indecent things to get this job. But I’m not sure how popular a female coroner is going to be with the rest of your police force,” she was compelled to point out, truthfully enough. “Especially one who goes about in tweeds and a fedora. You may be used to a woman who has a brain, but the rest of your lads?”

“They’ll do as they’re told,” said Jack, with a firmness beneath the dry words that raised him several more notches in Mac’s estimation. “The fact that the appointment is, for the moment, temporary, may go some way towards improving their politeness.”

“And you want me for the job.”

Jack nodded.

“Despite my ‘suspect associates’ and my ‘revolutionary tendencies’?” 

“Officially, yes, in spite of those things.”

“And unofficially?”

Jack’s face was as impassive as ever, but all of a sudden, he seemed to be laughing. “Because of them. Well, Dr. MacMillan? Will you take the job?”

Mac tossed back the rest of the excellent whiskey and set the tumbler on his desk with a firm _thunk_. “You seem to have talked yourself into a new coroner. Pour me another, Inspector, and show me to my morgue.”


	10. Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#10. “Teach me how to play?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca. (Hugh/Dottie)

“It’s very big,” Dot said, examining it dubiously. “Do you think it’ll fit?”

“It’ll fit,” Hugh replied, nodding. “We’ll make room.”

His confidence overlaid a barely-contained excitement that almost made Dot smile. “Well, I think I should have a say in that as well,” she said, making her voice sound as stern as possible. “After all, if you’re not even going to let me play with it—”

“Who said I wouldn’t?”

Dot gave her brand-new husband a look and reached for the little toy automobile in his hand. “Hey!” Hugh said in horror, waving it out of her reach. “Be careful, I just finished painting that!”

“Really, Hugh Collins, if you’re going to move this enormous model town of yours out of your mother’s shed and into our new bungalow and take up what by rights should be my sewing room, the _least_ you can do is let me play cops and robbers with it.”

Desire to please the new Mrs. Collins and the instinct to protect his treasures warred visibly on Hugh’s open, honest face. Finally he sighed. “Well, you have to play with it the _right_ way,” he said. 

Dot smiled. “Then show me.”


	11. Acting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#45. “Tell me a secret.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca and zenobia-at-blithedale.

The theatre was dark. The cast and crew had long since departed, leaving only their chief investor and her escort perched on the edge of the stage, feet dangling into the orchestra pit. “What first drew you to the stage, Jack?” Phryne asked, giving voice to a subject she had long wondered about. “Was it the glitter of the footlights, or the allure of adoring fans?”

His mouth quirked briefly, but there was a sudden tightness around his eyes that told Phryne she was treading on private ground. “I was just looking for something to do with my free evenings,” Jack replied, in the blandest possible tones. “What about you?”

Phryne felt the memories crowding in on her. Perhaps some of them were not dissimilar to what Jack was recalling. “I wanted to lose myself, in other people’s lives. I wanted a mask to hide behind. I wanted to play for a little while, and forget.”

Jack bumped his shoulder comfortingly against hers. “‘All the world’s a stage.’”


	12. Because

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#50. Writer’s preference.](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca.
> 
> Writer's choice: _"Because I love you."_

Neither of them had ever said the words. There didn't seem to be a need.

It was in the way she would grab his wrist if she needed to see the time, instead of simply buying a woman's wristwatch. The way she had somehow learned what his favorite foods were. How she knew where he lived, but never intruded, not even to send him a postcard when she was on holiday. How she would fix his tie and smooth the lapels of his jacket, as though his appearance reflected back upon her. 

It was in the sparing use he made of her name, speaking it only to calm her, never to claim her. The way he occupied her personal space (and any space she happened to be in was _her_ personal space). How he tried to let her go, even though it gutted him, rather than burden her with emotions (he thought) she had no use for. How he held her hand, safe and secure, when she needed him most.

He hadn't said the words aloud. She didn't think she ever could. 

There was no need.


	13. Expectations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#27. “I’m pregnant.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca. (Dot & Mr. Butler).
> 
> Bit longer than a drabble, this. ♥

She hadn’t told Hugh yet. She hadn’t even told her mother yet. But as she and Mr. Butler sat in the kitchen at Wardlow having tea after their weekly cleaning session (without Miss Phryne or any guests, it was all the house really needed), right in the middle of his story about how the late Mrs. Butler had once frightened off a burglar with one of their master’s Indian clubs, Dot blurted out, “Mr. Butler, I-I believe I’m expecting.”

Utter delight shone on his face. “Dorothy! That’s wonderful!” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Have you told Hugh yet?”

“No.” In spite of her nervousness, Dot smiled shyly. “I was thinking of waiting until Christmas. It’s only a few weeks away.”

“It’ll be the best present he could ask for,” said Mr. Butler warmly. “And you? You’re pleased?”

“Oh yes. I’ve always wanted a big family—maybe not as big as the families Hugh and I came from, but…” She hesitated and looked down at her tea, biting her lower lip as she mulled over what to say next. “I’m worried I won’t be able to be a mother _and_ keep working for Miss Fisher. And I want to be a mum! But… I don’t want to give up my job. I’m sure I’ll need to stop working for a while, if Miss Fisher comes back soon, but…”

“You’re worried about what Hugh will say.” Mr. Butler looked at her with keen eyes. “And what Miss Fisher will say.”

“Well, she doesn’t like babies very much…” Dot watched worriedly as Mr. Butler stood up from his chair and went to the shelf where he kept his household correspondence. 

“Miss Fisher left this for me before she left. It’s a list of a variety of circumstances that might arise in her absence, and what we should do in each case.” He put the paper on the table in front of Dot and pointed. “Now, what does number nine say?” 

Dot tore her eyes away from ‘Number One: In case of arson’ and ‘Number Four: In case of Russian art thieves’ and focused on ‘Number Nine: in case of Dottie becoming pregnant’: 

_“In case of Dottie becoming pregnant while I’m away (which there is a very good possibility of), please move Jane’s things into the second-biggest guest bedroom and repurpose her old room into a nursery. We can hardly expect only a single offspring from our dear Dot, and I would hate to lose my strong right hand because she thinks her children aren’t welcome in my home.”_

“There, you see?” said Mr. Butler soothingly, while Dot dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “Miss Fisher might not know what to do with a baby, though it’s probably one of the few things she doesn’t know how to do, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to dismiss you or not want your help because of it. Now,” he smiled, “let’s go look at Miss Jane’s old bedroom and see how we can arrange that nursery.”


	14. Appearances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#30. “It’s not what it looks like…”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca. (Jack & Hugh)

"In my office," said Inspector Robinson shortly, stalking past his senior constable. 

Hugh paled under his tall hat. He hadn't done anything improper with their witness's daughter, but of course the inspector had appeared just _after_ Hugh had tripped and stumbled and ended on top of the pretty young woman. In the bushes. In the most secluded part of their crime scene's back garden.

He removed his hat and followed Inspector Robinson into the office, feeling like he was about to get a caning from his old headmaster.

The inspector shut the door behind Hugh with a bang. "What the _hell_ happened, Collins?"

"Sir, I swear, it was an accident--"

"Was it? Or is Dot's pregnant state starting to wear on you just a little too much?"

Hugh's eyes went so wide, he thought they might pop right out. "Sir, I would _never_ do that to Dottie." He took a deep breath. "And frankly, sir, I'm insulted that you could think that of me." 

The inspector was unmoved by Hugh's insulted state, but he seemed impressed by his constable's firmness of manner. At least, Hugh hoped he was.

"All right, Collins. For the record, I believe you. But I had to ask, in case."

"Sir?"

The inspector grimaced. "According to our witness, her daughter is... not the most virtuous of young ladies. I wanted to be damned sure you weren't--"

"I wasn't!"

"--in case she turns up in the family way, in the near future."

Hugh blanched. "Good lord, sir," he said weakly. "After everything Dottie's going through with this baby, I'm not sure I'll ever want to put her through it again, let alone anyone else!"

Inspector Robinson smiled sympathetically and poured a small and highly irregular whiskey for his senior constable. "I'm sure you will, Collins. ...Dot, that is. Not anyone else."


	15. Promises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#9. “Don’t you ever do that again!”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by izzyandlouie and pirategirlofcollingwood.
> 
> This picks up a bit from Chapter 1.

Jack was lucky. That’s what the surgeon said. The shooter had been standing above them, and the bullet had taken a downward path, just nicking the left side of Jack’s liver. It was still a dicey proposition, but Jack was healthy and fit and relatively young. 

The nurse that lingered in Phryne’s mental makeup examined Jack’s wound, checked his pulse and his temperature, and had to concur. Moreover, she’d already had Mac in to look at him, while he was unconscious, and to hell with the official surgeon’s grumbling. 

“You saw the gunman,” Phryne said flatly, sitting down beside Jack’s hospital bed. 

His blue eyes were dark and enormous in his pale face. His cheekbones stood out sharper than ever. “Yes.”

“You pushed me out of the way.”

“There wasn’t time to warn you. I didn’t think.”

Lips tight, Phryne nodded. He had been a soldier once. It wasn’t a reaction ten or twelve years could erase. 

“Don’t do it again, Jack.”

“Don’t put yourself in harm’s way.”

She shook her head. “You know I can’t promise that.”

Slowly, with great effort, Jack smiled. “Neither can I.”


	16. Taking Aim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#11. “Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by izzyandlouie and lunalove-blr.

_Thunk!_

“What in the hell...?” Phryne peered over the steering wheel of the Hispano. The cold and inclement weather driving back from Jamieson had forced her to finally raise the top of her beloved automobile, and she despised the resultant decrease in her peripheral vision. “Something just hit the hood.”

Mac, who was still nursing a tremendous headache, glanced at the hood and rolled her eyes. “Looks like someone lobbed a snowball at you.”

“What? But we’ve only just parked, who could—” Another snowball broke against the windshield, and through the snow and the condensation, Phryne caught a glimpse of a familiar figure. Her face lit up with a mixture of annoyance and delight. “Jane.”

From the backseat, Dot spoke up. “Miss, I’ll just bet that Bert and Cec egged her into it.”

“No egging necessary, I’ll wager.” Phryne opened the car door and tumbled out, eager for a snowball fight. 

What she saw in her front garden was indeed her young ward, red-cheeked with the cold and laughing, and a sight for sore eyes, looking very grown-up and dashing in her Parisian coat and fur hat. But guiding her throwing arm was neither Bert nor Cec. “Jack!” cried Phryne in delight. 

“Good afternoon, Miss Fisher!” he called back, his gloved hands busily packing snow. “Since the Jamieson police took Mr. Mortimer into their custody, I felt justified in giving myself the day off.”

“We’re going to build a snow fort in the park!” said Jane excitedly. 

Phryne grinned, glad to see that Jane’s Grand Tour had not robbed her of enjoyment in the simpler pleasures of life. “I just might have to join you.”

“Yes,” Jack continued, still building missiles, “some of my nephews have challenged me to a pitched battle, and I needed reinforcements.”

“The inspector’s been helping me improve my aim,” Jane explained, throwing another snowball – imaginary, this time – at her guardian. 

“And is the inspector’s aim any good?” asked Phryne with interested politeness. But her smile faded when she saw the sudden gleam in Jack’s blue eyes. “Oh no, _no_ , Jack Robinson, don’t you _dare_ —damn it!” she finished with a shriek, and ducked just a fraction of a second too late to avoid a snowball being lobbed at her with the velocity of a three-inch shell, and catching her firmly on the arm. “Oh, if it’s a battle you want—!”

She scooped up a wad of wet snow in both her hands, packing it in the same motion, and hurled it over the bars of the fence at him. Jack barely avoided it, and laughed at her. The war was on. 

Aunt Prudence, who was in the process of climbing out of the car, shook her head. “I’ve always said that man is a terrible influence on Jane.”


	17. Reflections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#24. "You're the only one I trust to do this."](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.
> 
> Bumped this one up the queue because Dee was kind enough to write [this same prompt](http://edeainfj.tumblr.com/post/129149574301/drabble-24) for me. Also because she begged, and sometimes I am woefully susceptible to begging. … _Sometimes._

"You're the only one I trust to do this," Phryne said, watching Jack watch her in the mirror. 

"Really?" His tone was polite, with an underlying layer of pride. 

"Well, the only man, certainly. Dot's been kind enough to oblige me on occasion, but..." Phryne laughed softly, turning this way and that, to give him a better view. "I know it makes her uncomfortable. She only does it to humor me."

"Hmph. And I don't?"

"Don't play coy with me, Jack Robinson. You're enjoying yourself thoroughly." 

"I'm a respectable policeman, Miss Fisher. 'Coyness' is not part of my job description."

Phryne grinned ruthlessly at his reflection, not at all fooled. "Well, then?" She revolved and let the floor-length black fox coat drop to the floor. "What do you think?" 

Jack gazed at her hungrily, taking in every stitch and shimmer of the gorgeous emerald green gown that was House of Fleuri's latest temptation upon Phryne's bank account. "I think you're going to break a lot of hearts, in that dress." 

"That's the whole point, darling." She beckoned him close with one forefinger and then drew him in by his tie for a quick, searing kiss. "But not the one that matters."


	18. Rumours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#5. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by slimwhistler, who also asked for 'angsty w/happyish ending.'
> 
> Bringing in a teeny bit of the book-universe for this one…

_Three days,_ Jack thought, seething as he drove to St. Kilda, _I was only out of town for **three days**! And that’s all it took!_

The lads at the station were full of the rumours, as was his photographer cousin, who always kept an ear to the local gossip, that Miss Phryne Fisher had been seen at the pier, greeting a young and apparently wealthy man arriving from England, with what was only being described to him as ‘more than friendly interest.’ “She was all over that puppy,” one of the sergeant had hooted, not caring that the door to the inspector’s office was open. “In public!”

And there was a message waiting on his desk, that Miss Fisher wanted to see him as soon as he was free. Jack had a mind to never be free for that woman again. _I have been a bloody fool,_ he cursed, and feeling as though his heart was being left behind him somewhere. 

Phryne opened the door herself. “Hallo, Jack!” she said, beaming. She looked almost obscenely happy to see him. “How was Ballarat? Did the trial go the way you hoped?”

“Fitzgibbons will hang,” said Jack shortly.

Phryne swept a concerned eye over his balled fists, his unusually tight jaw. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, perfectly. I’ve just had some…” _Interesting reports about what you apparently think ‘monogamy’ means._ But he didn’t say it. He couldn’t bring himself to say such a thing to her, not again. Not while he was sober. “…some unfortunately large piles of paperwork accumulate on my desk. So unless there’s something pressing, Miss Fisher…”

“There is. I missed you,” she said softly, smoothing her hand down the lapel of his coat. 

“Yes?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a male shape lounging in the parlour. “But I’m keeping you from your company. I should go.”

“No. Jack. There’s someone I need to introduce you to.” Rather against his will, she drew him into the parlour. 

The ‘puppy’ was indeed young, Jack saw. Fiendishly young, in fact; not more than sixteen. Blond where Phryne was dark, broad where she was slim. In fact, with the exception of the eyes, Jack knew precisely where he had seen the boy before. In Phryne’s dining room back in September, an older and more haggard shape of this man wrapped in a fine red silk dressing gown. But this youth’s eyes were not the Baron’s. They were Phryne’s. Or rather, Jack realized belatedly, and feeling entirely ashamed at his thick-headedness, Phryne’s mother’s. 

“Jack, darling,” Phryne said, looping her arm through his, “I’d like you to meet my little brother, The Honourable Thomas Fisher. Thos, this is Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, my…” She glanced from boy to man and then gave Jack a proud little kiss on his cheek. “My partner.”


	19. In Step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#7. “I almost lost you.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by slimwhistler, who also asked for 'angsty w/happyish ending'.

“Do you even know how to waltz, Jack?” Phryne teased him gently, to hide the sudden wild pounding of her heart. It was so loud in her chest, surely he could hear it…

“I have a vague recollection of the steps,” he conceded, “from the dance lessons my mother forced me to attend as a child. 

“Hmm. And do you lead? Or do you follow?”

Jack replied with a thoughtful shrug. “Depends on the day. And how fast you intend to drive, in the future.”

“As fast as ever. There’s no point to owning a Hispano-Suiza, otherwise.”

“Get a new car,” said Jack bluntly. “If you want me to have a chance of keeping up.”

Phryne laughed, but quietly, and for a second or two she curled her fingers around his tie, just below the knot. _I almost lost you… I didn’t know how much I needed you until you almost weren’t there…_ “I’m still here, Jack,” she assured him.

In his fond, frustrated, longing gaze, she saw her own words both spoken and not, reflected back at her. “God help me,” he said with a smile.


	20. Draughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#20. “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by slimwhistler, who also asked for 'angsty w/happyish ending'.

The draughts board was set up on the little table beside Jack’s hospital bed. It was his turn. None of his pieces had been moved since Phryne left the night before. 

His thick wavy hair was tumbled in an unruly cowlick over his forehead. Phryne brushed it back gently and pressed a kiss to the place it had covered, and sank down into the hard chair beside him. “Has he woken yet today?” she whispered to the nurse. 

“Not yet.”

It was almost two in the afternoon. Phryne watched the nurse check Jack’s pulse, and then after she left, instinctively checked it again. It was steady, but weak. “I warned you, Jack Robinson,” she said. “I warned you not to die on me. You don’t even want to _know_ what I’ll do if you…” Phryne cut herself off, biting her tongue hard to stop the tears before they started. 

“So you listen to me. If you know what’s good for you, you are _going_ to wake up. I can’t make this town safe by myself, you know.”

“…Liar,” croaked a tired voice. 

Speech fled from Phryne, and she clutched his hand. 

“You’ll just… threaten them all… into submission.” Jack took a deep breath, then another, and another. He turned his head on the pillow and opened his eyes, and Phryne almost sobbed. “Seems to work on me.”


	21. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#45. “Tell me a secret.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by evendale, with a little prompting from me. ;)
> 
> I broke my own ‘no prompt/pairing repeats’ to do this one. Inspired by [this post](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129313937617/evendale-gaslightgallows-michele02132). Call this a spiritual sequel to “Varying States of Muscular Undress.”

“I’ve never asked about this one,” Phryne murmured, tracing a thin curved line that bisected Jack’s forehead and disappeared into his tousled hair. 

“No,” Jack agreed amiably. He didn’t volunteer more; he was too comfortable. His head was pillowed in Phryne’s lap, and she was stroking his hair. The air around them was warm, his stomach was full from the picnic... life was good. 

“Will you tell me?”

Life was suddenly less comfortable. “I thought you preferred a man with some mysteries about him.”

Her fingertips delicately explored the tiny puckers at the edge of the scar, and then returned to their previous activity of carding through his hair. “And so I do.” 

She seemed willing to let the matter lie... but Jack’s discomfort remained. “It was during the Police Strike,” he said finally. “There was a lot of fighting in the streets.”

“I was in Bombay in nineteen-twenty-three,” Phryne mused. “I remember reading the British and Australian papers, reporting on the strike.”

“It wasn’t pretty. Any of it. And there was a moment...” Jack’s whole body shuddered. “My friend Lee Gibson and I were up against some strike-breakers. Gib and I were in the trenches together. Gib... had a much better war than I did. He took less time to put France behind him. So we were in a punch-up with this handful of strike-breakers, and from somewhere beyond us, I heard gunshots in quick succession. And suddenly...”

“Suddenly,” Phryne murmured, “you were back.”

Her fingers in his hair were reassuringly solid and real. “I ran,” Jack said, simply. “Or rather, I tried to run. Unfortunately, the wharfie in front of me thought I was running _at_ him, and he had a very nasty broken bottle.” 

“You were very lucky,” said Phryne after a long moment. She followed the line of the scar down his face. “Another inch down and you could’ve lost an eye. Another inch to the left and that broken bottle would have found your temple.”

“Believe me, I’ve considered all of that. Many, many times.”

“How did you and Gib find your way out of that fight?”

Jack snorted. “My panic attack distracted the rest of the gang long enough for Gib to grab me by the collar and get me the hell out of there. That was actually how he managed to keep his job. I got by because I was the Deputy Commissioner’s son-in-law, and Gib came out of the strike still employed because he’d saved my sorry arse. He got a commendation for it; I got a bunch of stitches and a lecture from Rosie.”

Phryne tugged his hair lightly. “I don’t blame her. She must’ve been terrified when she saw you, with your head all bloodied and bandaged.”

“She was, yes. Although after she was done scolding me, the bandage made me look rather dashing and heroic, which was very appealing to her romantic side...” Jack glanced up at Phryne. “Of course, you having been a nurse, you probably wouldn’t have found it so...”

“I’ll have you know that many of my favorite lovers were introduced to me battered and bloody,” Phryne retorted, putting on her most well-bred simper. “Whereas you were introduced to be in a bathroom.”

“Well, like you say, you’re always up for new experiences.”

She bent and pressed a kiss to his forehead.


	22. Food for Thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#39. “Hey! I was gonna eat that!”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Sarah gave me the option to change up one of her Phrack prompts a bit, so I decided to have some fun. ;)

Jack knows he has a particular ‘type’ of woman that he’s attracted to. Dark hair, bright eyes, clever and strong-willed to the point of stubbornness, and with a smile always lurking in the corner of her mouth. 

And something else, that he hadn’t ever quite noticed until recently. The women he liked, and who liked him... liked to steal his food.

“Those are _my_ biscuits, thank you very much,” Jack said to Rosie, confiscating the tin and trying to glare sternly at her, at least once a week during their marriage, and apparently at least once a month after it. “Bake your own.”

“I’m hopeless at baking, Jack, you know that. You, though, you should open a bakery.”

“What, selling nothing but Anzac biscuits?” he grinned. 

“Nothing but _your_ biscuits, naturally.”

Jack wrapped up half the remaining treats in a napkin and handed them to Rosie. She kissed his cheek in thanks. “You’re much too generous, and we love you for it...”

“But... I wasn’t done,” Jack protested, rather ineffectively, when Concetta removed his not-quite-clean plate and stacked it with the others to be carted off to the kitchen for washing. 

“Then you need to eat faster,” she retorted with a smile. “It’s only because you are a guest and sometimes a customer that we let you have the food first. I had four brothers growing up. You think food stayed on the table long enough to taste it? _And_ you’re the last one in the restaurant, Gianni. It’s time for bed.” Her deep brown eyes were suddenly very soft. “I hope you have a little appetite left for that...”

“I was going to eat that,” Jack commented, watching as Phryne devoured his morning plate of toast and jam. 

“When, at lunch time? It’s stone-cold. For a man who’s constantly hungry, you’re not very diligent about actual meals.”

“I’m going to come by your house some morning—or afternoon—just as you’re waking up, and stroll into your bedroom and steal _your_ breakfast. How would you like that, Miss Fisher?”

She returned his level, heated gaze calmly. “Try it and see, Inspector.”


	23. Madness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#18. “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by omgimsarahtoo. (Mac & Phryne)

“This?” said Mac, pointing to the rope her oldest friend had somehow managed to string up between the private sanitarium for Melbourne’s well-to-do and the home of the highly respectable, highly wealthy, and highly suspicious donor, who had taken up residence only the month before. “This? Is absolute _madness_.”

“It’s definitely a little more dramatic than I was initially planning,” Phryne conceded. “But Peterson has the most ridiculously sophisticated locks on all of his doors, and I can’t crack them. The only way inside is through the top floor windows.”

The wind disarrayed Mac’s red hair as they stood on the roof in the dark. “And you can’t just scale the building like you normally do?”

“Too visible. Now.” Phryne held up the rest of the rigging she would need to traverse the line as quickly as possible. “You’re the experienced mountaineer. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Am I…? Phryne.” Mac snatched the ropes from Phryne’s hands and began harnessing her to the traverse line. “You’re almost certainly going to die in this attempt or be arrested for breaking and entering, and if I’m going to get taken in as an accessory, I at least want to have _done_ something worth being arrested for.”


	24. Hijinks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#16. “It could be worse.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by crazycatschickenlady and omgimsarahtoo.

"What are we going to do about this, Phryne?" 

She took the letter Jack proffered and skimmed its contents. "This is the third note in a week from Worley Grammar about Jane's anti-social behaviour and her lack of interest in her work." 

Jack, who considered Phryne's ward to be practically an adopted niece, if not a daughter in his own right, looked at his partner worriedly. "Have you spoken to Jane about this?" 

"I have... but I'm surprised the board of governors is sending these letters to you."

"If you didn't want me involved in Jane's schooling, you shouldn't have put my name in her paperwork as a next of kin. What did she say?" 

Phryne smiled reassuringly at him. "She's bored, Jack. Between you, me, Mac, and a trip to Europe, Jane is a great deal more well-read and sophisticated than many of her peers. Small wonder she's talking back to the teachers. She probably knows more than they do about ancient history and analytical chemistry." Phryne pursed her lips in thought. "Didn't you say your nephews' prep school had recently become co-educational? Jane only needs another year before she can go off to university..."

"I'll call the Headmaster first thing in the morning," Jack promised. 

Phryne laughed and kissed him. "You look almost ridiculously relieved! Just remember: it could always be worse. She could've been caught smoking in the girls' lavatory or doping the teachers' tea urn with laudanum."

Jack replied with a look of wary admiration. "Speaking from past experience?"

"Don't be absurd, Jack. My schoolgirl hijinks weren't nearly so tame."


	25. After Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#48. “Boo.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by crazycatschickenlady, omgimsarahtoo, and cowalyn.

It wasn’t the first time Phryne had needed to sneak into a cemetery after dark. It wasn’t even the first time she’d needed to do so in order to foil potential thieves who were also potential murderers. It was definitely the first time she had ever been required to finagle her way into a cemetery via an underground passage. _Oh, this is definitely going into my memoirs,_ she promised herself gleefully, as she crept along, torch and hasty map in hand. 

According to the directions the cemetery attendant had given her after long and vigorous questioning, the tunnel would end at a ladder, which would take her up into the crypt immediately opposite the Mowbray Crypt, which the gang was supposedly planning to break into in the wee hours. And sure enough, there was the ladder, leading up through the stone of the floor. 

Phryne looked up and frowned. There was a faint line shining down from the small room above. Someone was already in the crypt. 

She switched off her torch and stowed it away, along with the map, and then tested the ladder. Solid. She climbed it carefully, pausing between each rung, listening. There was no sound from the above. 

Emerging from the tunnel, Phryne found that the exit was shielded from the rest of the crypt by a low marble wall that seemed to have once been an ornamental seat for family mourners, except that now, the top of the seat had long since crumbled away. She peered over the side, saw what living persons were crouched together keeping vigil at the tomb’s air grate, and grinned. 

Silent as the grave they were all technically standing in, Phryne crept up behind Jack and Hugh and gently insinuated her small heart-shaped face between their heads, so that her lips were level with their ears. 

“Boo.”

Poor Hugh fainted away. 

Jack just glanced at his watch. “Right on time, Miss Fisher.”


	26. Morning After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#45. “Well this is awkward...”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy. (Mac&Jack)
> 
> ...I had to. *hangs head in shame*

“Christ, my head… Mac.”

“Mmmrph?”

“Whose bed are we in?”

Mac knotted her fingers into her own hair and physically lifted her head from the pillow. “Looks like Phryne’s.”

“Is Phryne anywhere in the bed with us?”

“…Doesn’t seem to be.” She let her head drop back down.

Jack groaned. “What in God’s name did we drink last night?”

“Somehow, I suspect that the Almighty had nothing to do with whatever the hell it was we imbibed. And if we’re here, then I think Phryne might’ve gone home with the bookstore owner I was wooing.” Mac forced herself to roll over and sit up. “…Well that’s interesting,” she said, looking down. 

Jack glanced at her in confusion. “Oh shit,” he muttered, immediately turning away from her naked torso. Then, looking under the covers, “Oh _shit_. Did we…?”

Mac felt around between her legs. “Doesn’t seem like it.” 

“You’re sure?”

“Jack, I haven’t had sex with a man since the first battle of Ypres. If we’d drunk-fucked last night, I promise, I would know.”

“Oh, thank God.” He grabbed a pillow and smushed it against his face.

Mac pulled the sheet up over her breasts and looked at him in bemusement. “I almost want to be insulted.”

“It’s not that… I just know that if we _did_ , and Phryne found out, well…” Jack peered blearily at her from beneath the pillow. “She’d be very angry at both of us that she wasn’t here to participate.”


	27. Morning After (Chaser)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#5. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy. (Mac & Jack)
> 
> The Hon. Mrs. gave me permission to do this. :D

“Are you all right?” Jack asked, once he was a little more awake and felt safe emerging from underneath his pillow. “You look... perturbed.”

“I was just wondering...” Mac examined the weave of Phryne’s expensive linen sheets with particularly intent interest. “Would you have minded?”

“...Having sex with you?” Mac nodded; Jack blinked, wondering if he was still drunk or if it was the hangover causing hallucinations. “I didn’t think you liked men.”

“I don’t.”

“Then I don’t...”

“I don’t like men, plural. But you’re fairly attractive for a male, you’re intelligent and courteous, you’ve got _gorgeous_ hands, and I trust you. And as we’re here...” She grinned, her brown eyes roaming appreciatively over his bared chest. “One likes something a little different, once in a great while. I'm not sure why, precisely, but alcohol-tinged minds are not logical minds.”

“Mac, if you’re not sober yet...” The rest of the sentence trailed off as Mac rose up on her knees, letting the sheet fall away. Jack gazed up at her in mute admiration. She wasn’t Phryne, of course, and he wasn’t normally partial to red-heads, but she was lovely in her own right, and to his surprise, he felt himself growing hard. 

“I’m perfectly lucid, Jack, thank you for asking. And I’ll let you in on a secret...” She leaned down and stretched out perpendicular to him, so that her chin was resting on his bicep. “I’ve always had a bit of a scientist’s fancy for your body.” 

“Is that so?” he rumbled softly, aroused and amused. He rather liked that combination. 

“I can’t help but admire a set of muscles in as top-notch condition as yours are, and to tell you the truth...” She traced an exploratory finger up his sternum and throat, up to his lips. “I’ve been rather jealous of Phryne, in that respect.” Mac quirked a eyebrow. “So?”

Jack slid a hand over her bare arm and shoulder blade. “She’s going to be furious that she missed this.”

“If she doesn’t want me stealing her dates,” Mac said dryly, “then she should know better than to steal mine.” She rose up on her elbows and kissed him hard. “Let me take the lead.”

“As much or as little as you like,” he promised. 

Phryne, when she finally deigned to return home and found them in bed together, was completely appalled. “I cannot believe you too! Getting up to all sorts of... _this_! Without me! Can’t you... go another round? Now that I’m home?”

Mac looked at her best friend in dismay. “Phryne, that was the best sex I’ve _ever_ had with a man or am ever likely to have again, and frankly, he wore me out. I’m exhausted!”

“Thank you,” said Jack placidly. 

“And you actually stayed _awake_ afterward, well done.” Mac stretched and yawned. “Which is more than I can say. G’night, you two.” She pulled all the blankets into a cocoon around herself and fell instantly and peacefully to sleep.


	28. Tutelage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#5. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by zenobia-at-blithedale.
> 
> This one ended up being Phryne and Mac, but they talk about Jack, so... hopefully this counts?

Phryne Fisher looked sideways at her drinking companion, comfortably ensconced in the window seat with a folded newspaper in one hand and a tumbler of whiskey in the other. "You and Inspector Robinson have been spending a lot of time together, of late," she noted.

Dr. Elizabeth McMillan, familiarly known to all and sundry as 'Mac', waved her glass nonchalantly. "He's trying to understand all the ins and outs of this rash of poisoning cases we've had lately, so I've been tutoring him in forensic toxicology." 

"And is he a good student?"

"Hmm," said Mac in the affirmative, from the depths of her paper. "I wish I could've gotten my hands on him ten years ago. He retains information very readily, asks intelligent questions, and doesn't interrupt me when I'm talking. The ideal student." She glanced at Phryne with a twinkle in her brown eyes. "To say nothing of his hands. You should see him handle a pipette."

Phryne made a face at her friend and poured herself a fresh whiskey.

"Oh for God's sake, it's not like I'm trying to steal him away from you." Mac rustled her newspaper. "I wouldn't know what to do with him after one or two tumbles, anyway," she added, _sotto voce_.

"And do you always take your ideal students dining with you at the Iphis Club?"

"Where on earth did you get that bit of idle gossip?" The doctor tossed aside her paper and speared Phryne with a no-nonsense look. "I've bumped into him there once or twice, absolutely. But he was there dining with someone else."

Phryne felt suddenly betrayed – not by Jack, but by her own intuition. "Who with?" she blurted out.

Mac smiled sweetly. "His cousin, I believe. And she is quite the looker, I _must_ say." She snorted. "Don't worry, Phryne. Inspector Robinson might – _might_ – have been looking at the gentlemen guests, but he wasn't there to touch. He and his cousin were very nice to me, though. Invited me to join them at their table."

"Is this the photographer cousin?"

"The very one."

"And did you all have jolly chemistry conversation over supper?"

"Actually, they mainly wanted to talk about you." Phryne looked so concerned at that statement that Mac couldn't help laughing. "What's wrong, hmm? Worried I'm going to tell your pet policeman all your deepest darkest secrets?" She swung her legs round the front of the window seat and leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Don't worry. I promise not to tell him about the spiders."

"Elizabeth Grizel McMillan, don't you dare."

"I also promise not to tell him your middle name," said Mac, grinning like a madwoman.


	29. Playing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#10. “Teach me how to play?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by zenobia-at-blithedale.

There was something unearthly about Jack’s hands. Phryne had seen that from the beginning, from the moment he had pulled his business card smoothly from its case and told her to stay out of police work. If he had sent the constable away that day and fucked her right on the Andrewses’ bathroom floor, she would not have objected in the slightest, for the especial pleasure of having his hands on her body. 

Now that she knew him better, of course, she wanted him and his hands even more. 

She loved to watch what his hands did when they played draughts. How they would hover in the air over a piece, hesitate for a second or two, and either draw back to reconsider or else grip the piece firmly and decisively and make his move. 

She had watched him covet her baby grand piano for nearly a year before she finally caught him playing it, and it had been a struggle to sit beside him and sing and listen to his voice, low and husky, and leave his hands alone, as they curved and descended on the keys in precisely the way she wanted them on her.

There had been the case of the butcher, the baker, and the Spanish herder, and in the middle of their interviews Jack’s eyes had lighted on a guitar in a corner of the bunkhouse. He picked it up and strummed it thoughtfully, tuned it and plucked out a melody with a kind of careless skill that made Phryne nearly melt into the floor.

And when she finally brought him to her bed, all of those things crowded in on her and made her giddy with need.

“Will you play me like a piano, Jack Robinson?” she purred, nipping his earlobe. “Or like a Spanish guitar? Or like a game of draughts, all strategy and sleight of hand?”

He caught her round the waist, his fingers splayed astride the small of her back and his thumbs feather-light against the skin of her hips. “Like a game that can’t be won,” he murmured, dipping his head to explore the delicate tracery of her throat. “Like an instrument that hasn’t been invented.” His lips were warm against her collarbone, his hands delving beneath the waistband of her trousers. “So you’ll have to teach me.”


	30. Accuracy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#19. “The paint’s supposed to go where?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by zenobia-at-blithedale.

Phryne held out the paint pot and brush.

“…You’re joking. On your—no, you can’t be serious.”

“You were the one who decided that we should dress as Greeks for Guy and Isabella’s anniversary ball instead of Antony and Cleopatra, so you get to do my makeup.”

Jack looked dumbly at the accoutrements. “But… why does it have to go on your… nipples?”

“Because,” Phryne said patiently, while thoroughly enjoying the slow blush darkening his cheekbones, “that is what unmarried Greek women did. And as we are not married, at least in the legal sense, I plan on being historically accurate tonight.”

“…Yes, but unmarried Greek women were also _maidens_ , which you are decidedly not, and walked around with bared breasts.” A look of sheer horror passed over Jack’s face. “You’re not planning to…?”

“Not that Guy or Isabella would mind, but no, Jack, I am not planning to attend their party bare-bosomed.”

“Oh thank God.” 

“So will you humour me?” she wheedled. 

He took the pot and brush and bent over her small breasts

She ran her fingers fondly through his hair, breathing shallowly, nipples pebbling as the short soft bristles brushed delicately over her sensitive skin. “Don’t worry, darling,” she murmured. “You can enjoy taking it off me even more, later.” Phryne grinned. “This paint is edible.”


	31. Sartorial Elegance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#35. “You heard me. Take. It. Off.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by zenobia-at-blithedale, pirategirlofcollingwood, and cowalyn.
> 
> I _think_ I got all of Jack’s ties, but I probably missed one somewhere. XD

“Phryne,” Jack sighed. “I need to go to work.”

“Oh? Well, that _is_ a tragedy… but don’t let me stop you.” She arched against his half-dressed body and planted a sweet kiss on his cheek, and then sashayed away. 

“Unfortunately, seeing as how you’ve confiscated every single one of my ties, you already have.” Jack dragged a hand through his still-rumpled hair. “Can’t you give me just one?”

Phryne turned slowly on her heel. Her smile was pure innocent sweetness. Her eyes were snapping glee and green fire. “Which one of them would you like, Jack?” 

He gulped. 

His gold tie was twisted up in her short black hair like a scarf. The pale gold-gray tie with the multicolored diamonds was tied round her forehead.

His blue-and-silver tie with the geometric pattern was thrown dashingly round her neck, and above it, the black velvet bow tie from his tuxedo rested snugly, just under her chin. 

The blue tie with the small gray squares and the blue tie with the small pearl-colored feathers were each tied round her biceps. The blue-gray-and-silver-striped tie was wrapped around her right thigh; the dark gray-green tie with the black diamonds around her right. 

The tie with the pattern of small blue and green squares on a darker blue background hung in a slant around her ribs. The mostly-blue-and-red one with the modernistic wheelie things was belted round her breasts like a bandeau, just barely obscuring her nipples, and his favorite dark maroon tie with the white bar pattern was draped over her hips in the manner of a loincloth, hanging straight down over the dark curls at the apex of her thighs. 

In fact, the only tie of his that she was not currently clad in was the hideous olive-and-salmon-coloured thing his sister had given him for Christmas one year. Jack hadn’t seen that tie in a while. He suspected Phryne had burned it. 

“Well, Jack?” she asked, in the calm throaty voice that undid him the most. “Pick one.”

He looked down at his charcoal suit, and then back at Phryne. “The maroon one,” he decided, glad that the hitch in his voice was a small one.

She stepped closer, the ties all swaying, some of them dangerously. “Go ahead, then. Take it off.”

“Phryne,” Jack growled. “I _need_ to go to _work_.”

She shrugged and canted her pelvis towards him. “I’m not stopping you.”

He got to work… eventually.


	32. Nothing But the Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#21. “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by rivendellrose. 
> 
> This one got long. And is only slightly tangential to the prompt? Oh, and I apologize for the title of this chapter. Sorry, Jen. :P

It wasn’t often that Jack was able to sneak off to the foreshore on his lunch break. Hell, it wasn’t even often that he got to _take_ his lunch break. But he tried to manage it once in a while, especially during the height of summer. 

Especially when Miss Fisher had intimated where on the beach she would be, and that she was for once without companion or ward. 

He stopped in the men’s changing pavilion to exchange his street clothes for his black bathing suit, and then went in search of Miss Fisher. She wasn’t hard to find. Jack had long since developed a knack for picking her out of a crowd. He trotted easily along the sand, covering the distance well before the admiration had faded from her eyes. 

“I’m surprised you came,” he said genially. “It’s supposed to storm today.”

“That’s the best time to come to the beach,” replied Phryne, lowering her sunglasses and grinning infectiously at him. “Keeps all the amateurs at home.” She discarded her glasses and sun hat and the demure wrap covering her legs. As they were on the beach, Jack felt that there was no impropriety in admiring her legs. “I’ll have you know, I’ve done some training since our swimming race last year.”

“Oh really?” Jack crossed his arms and smirked, immediately catching her intention. “Think you can beat me this time?”

“I’m going to do it and give it a damn good try,” Phryne vowed.

And she did. Give it a damn good try, that is. Once again, Jack ended up waiting under the pier for Phryne to catch up with him. “You did much better this time,” he said, trying not to laugh. Out of breath and with her hair snarling in front of her eyes, she had an unfortunate resemblance to a child’s misused and discarded doll. 

“Oh, don’t patronize me,” she grumbled, dashing her hair back with an ungentle hand.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Fisher.” 

She put her head on one side and regarded him with a curious expression. “Do you remember the last time we did this, and a wave threw us together in the most haphazard fashion?”

“I do,” said Jack, with a little cough. “Why do you ask?”

Phryne swam closer, not close enough to touch him, but close enough for a wave to have its way with them. “Because I find myself hoping that it happens again.”

Jack swallowed. They’d each been so busy since her return from England, there had hardly been time… “Do we really have to wait for a wave?”

And then she was in his arms, her mouth on his tasting like salt and champagne. Cold water notwithstanding, Jack felt a jolt of arousal that made him gasp, and for a split second he seriously contemplating spinning Phryne round so that her back was against the post and having his way with her—

Thunder boomed loudly, once, twice, and then the heavens opened and poured down sheets of rain. 

Phryne threw back her head and laughed. 

They swam hastily to the shallows and scrambled out of the water. Her beach things were a complete mess, her champagne ruined and her towels soaked, but she didn’t care. Jack shielded his eyes from the rain and watched her among the wreck of her belongings. “Isn’t it _marvelous_?” she shouted, over the roar of the rain and surf. “I love the feeling of rain on my skin!”

“We just got out of the water!” he called back, grinning like a lunatic. “How can you feel anything?”

“Oh for God’s sake, Jack, where’s your sense of romance?”

She ran to him, and he showed her.


	33. Exceptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#25. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by rivendellrose, who also asked for Mac & Phryne and Phryne/Lillian Elsworth (from [The Domestic Lives of Detectives](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4520589/chapters/10422468) and [A Fine Proud Thing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4830731)).

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Mac grumbled to her friend as they dressed for dinner. “I don’t need help.”

“What, asking a good-looking woman out for a night on the town? Of course you don’t.” Phryne peered critically at her reflection in her dressing table mirror and applied her lipstick with surgical precision. “Actually following through with the date? That, you needed help with.”

“And your idea of helping me is tagging along? Because of course _that_ won’t give Emily the wrong impression.”

“I’m not tagging along, it’s a double-date.”

“…You’re not seriously bringing Detective-Inspector Robinson along.” Mac looked up from her struggle with her tie with an expression of sheer dismay. “She’s his cousin! And practically the only family he’s got left! That’s like… bringing the older brother along as a chaperone!”

“I’m not bringing Jack.” Phryne got up and went to rescue Mac from her fancy tie. Normally the trappings of gentlemen’s clothing were of small consequence to a woman with Mac’s fingers, but she was in a bit of a state tonight. “As it happens, Jack’s out of town on a case. A very boring and tedious case that I wanted no part of.”

“Lucky woman, to be able to pick and choose your cases. Then… who’s your escort?”

Phryne grinned brilliantly. “She’s downstairs.”

“…‘She’? Broadening your horizons, are we?”

‘She’, Mac discovered when they descended into the parlour, was a tall and imposing woman in a gown of dark blue velvet. Her hair was strawberry-blonde and pulled back into a sleek chignon, and she smiled at Phryne as though she was already plotting what to do with her when the night was over. 

Which, knowing Phryne’s taste in both men _and_ women, she probably was.

Phryne looped her arms around the woman’s neck and kissed her thoroughly. “Lili, darling, this is my dear friend, Dr. Elizabeth MacMillian. She’s kindly agreed to let us trail alone while she woos her heart’s desire. Mac, this is Lillian Elsworth. Lili is my…” Phryne paused, and then a smile curled her lips. “My exception to the rule.”

Mac suddenly felt a lot better about the evening. If they were all over each other already, then maybe she and Emily would be able to snatch some private time after all.


	34. Little White Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#31. “You lied to me.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by rivendellrose. 
> 
> Playing off a bit of my and R’s shared headcanon.

“Something about your story doesn’t quite add up,” Jack said after the game, over warming cocktails in her parlour. 

Phryne crossed her legs and looked innocent and receptive. “Which story? The one about my mother keeping me away from football games?”

“No, the one about you being only ten years old when you tried to sabotage Carlton’s team captain.” Jack sipped his drink slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Phryne’s face. 

“Well?”

“You were born in December. That game took place in October of nineteen-ten.”

“All right, so I rounded up a little bit.” She leaned an elbow on her raised knee and lifted her chin in silent challenge. “Or is it that hard to believe that a nine-year-old girl could worm her way into the Carlton clubhouse?”

“Not when that girl was you.” Jack toasted her. “But you weren’t nine years old, either.” 

Phryne began to look vaguely uncomfortable. “What… makes you say that?”

“A great many things. Like you being in the women’s ambulance corps from the middle to the end of the war, when I know for a fact that you shouldn’t have been old enough to join up before Armistice.”

“I looked older for my age! Plenty of underage men joined the army at the same time – it wasn’t hard to fool the recruiters.”

“True,” Jack conceded. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”

“Which is?”

He let a slow, slight grin play around his lips. “That I have access to your juvenile police record. Which is a very impressive and informative read. You weren’t ten years old in nineteen-ten – you were twelve.”

Phryne slumped in her chair. “Damn. Well, there go my plans for another elaborate thirtieth birthday party.”


	35. Tricks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#2. “Have you lost your damn mind!?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by pirategirlofcollingwood.

"It's finally happened," Jack said in utter dismay. "You've finally and completely taken leave of your senses." 

"It's not what I'd prefer," Phryne snapped back.

"I hope you don't expect me to condone this."

"No. I am asking for your assistance, should I need it."

"You don't have to ask for it. It's yours, always. But..." Jack hesitated, worried she would take umbrage at his concern. "Isn't there some other way besides going undercover in a brothel? This isn't like when you infiltrated the Imperial Club. You could be there for a long time before you find out what happened to Tina Maloney."

"I know. Believe me, I've thought of that." Phryne reached across his desk and took the whiskey bottle. "The madam wants Tina's disappearance solved. She's agreed to take me on as her 'business partner', but she's adamant that I won't be on offer."

"But if one of the customers should take issue with that..."

"Then he will find himself missing something he's rather fond of," Phryne finished, with a steely glint in her eye that made Jack gulp and grin, in spite of himself. 

"Besides," she continued lightly, "this isn't a job for a policewoman, even if you had one available. I may never have needed to sell myself for money, but I do know an _awful_ lot about the... tricks of the trade."

"Making you just the woman for the job." Jack shifted, rather uncomfortably, in his chair.

Phryne's eyes danced at him over her shot glass. "And I am a _very_ good teacher."


	36. Wagers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#8. “Wanna bet?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by pirategirlofcollingwood.

Phryne turned over in bed, sniffling loudly. “Yes?” Her voice sounded like that of an old bull frog.

“Sorry, Miss,” said Dot, wincing a little in sympathy. “The Inspector’s downstairs with the files on the McCarthy case. And you did say he was the only person you’d be at home to, today...” 

“Nngh... I did say that...”

“Do you want me to tell him to come back tomorrow?”

“No, but if he wants to see me, it'll have to be here.”

“Here, Miss?” Dot shifted from one foot to the other. Her employer was not precisely decent for respectable male company. “Should I help you bathe and dress first?”

“When I said ‘here’, I meant precisely like this. Rumpled nightie, bedhead, red nose and all. I’m too deprived of oxygen to give a single damn what anybody thinks of me right now. Send ‘im up, Dot, if he'll come up.”

Dot went quietly away, and Phryne buried her head back under her pillows. 

A few minutes later, she heard her bedroom door open again. “Well, Dot?” she said thickly. “Was he frightened off?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it, if I were you,” chuckled a warm, deep voice that was like honey to Phryne’s ears. She peered out and saw Jack Robinson’s face, level with her own. 

“This is very forward of you, Detective-Inspector,” she pointed out primly. 

“I agree. But you did have Miss Williams practically dare me to come up.”

“Mmm. And now you’ve called my bluff.” Phryne’s vision fuzzed slightly at the edges and she closed her eyes tightly against the bright midday sun streaming into her bedroom. She heard Jack move away and draw the curtains, and then resume his place. “So?” she croaked. “What’s my forfeit to be? To stay off the McCarthy case until I can breathe without wheezing?”

Jack gently pushed the pillow back from her face, and then just as gently, touched his hand to her forehead. “If I promise to keep you informed, will you promise me to take care of yourself, for a change?”

“I don’t think I have much choice in the matter. My legs feel like they’re made of ten tons of India rubber apiece.” He smoothed his palm over her hair. “Mmm… nice… I wish you’d stay, Jack,” she murmured, as the soothing, repetitive motion began to lull her to sleep. “That’s nice… but you have to go back to the station…”

He chuckled again, and before she dropped off, Phryne thought she felt his lips on her cheek. “Don’t bet on it, Miss Fisher,” he murmured.


	37. To Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#34. “If you keep looking at me like that we won’t make it to a bed.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by whiskeyandjack and hello-beaniebeanie.

There was never a bed around when they needed one, or practically never. 

They had become adept at the professional dance. She had learned to keep her hands to herself and not sit on his desk when the door was open. He had remembered that she was a private citizen and should be treated as such, at least when top brass was around. 

But try as they might, their eyes would not be subdued. 

She, in the chair on the other side of his desk, demure and proper, would look at him from beneath her lashes, and he would read in their green depths her hunger to have his mouth on her mouth, on her breasts, between her thighs.

He, talking quietly with a witness on the other side of the room, could look up once to meet her eyes, and she would see and smell and taste all the things he wanted her to do to him, when they were alone.

And when they were finally not-quite-alone, there was never a bed to be found, but always a convenient wall or table or sofa or backseat of a car or broom closet. Whatever was to hand.

Beds, they discovered, were overrated.


	38. Camera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#35. “You heard me. Take. It. Off.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by whiskeyandjack. (Phryne/Mac)

“It’s not like you to be shy around me, especially not when we’re in bed together.”

“You don’t usually have a film camera when we’re in bed together.” Mac sprawled on Phryne’s fine linen sheets, clad only in her undergarments. They were women’s undergarments, since while men’s suits could be tailored for hips and breasts and internal genitalia, their underwear could not. Besides, there was nothing attractive about men’s underwear to Mac. “Does that thing belong to Raymond Hirsch? I hope he isn’t doing a sideline in pornography.”

“Oh good lord, can you _imagine_?” Both women giggled. They had known Raymond since their childhood in Collingwood, and the very idea of him doing anything of the sort was ludicrous. “No, this isn’t Raymond’s. I bought it for my own filmic endeavors.”

“Huh. And the purpose of your ‘filmic endeavors’?”

“My own private edification, of course.” Phryne’s playful voice became a purr, tinged with longing. “I don’t get you to myself nearly as often as I’d like.”

Mac considered. “If I do this… will you let me make one of you?”

“Oh, darling Mac… I thought you’d never ask.” Phryne knelt on the bed and kissed her softly, then with increasing passion. “Now then,” she said, reluctantly stepping back and raising the camera to her eye, “the brassiere next.”


	39. Knots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#4. “Do you…well…I mean…I could give you a massage?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by hello-beaniebeanie.

Jack entered the parlour with a knowing expression on his face. "So," he asked, in a voice much too smug and hearty for Phryne's liking, "how's it feel to be a hero?"

She glared at him from over a teacup and under a bag of ice. "Uncomfortable, to say the least."

"Any chance this means you'll be leaving the detecting to the professionals from now on?"

"Not on your life, Jack Robinson."

His lean face became solemn. "It wasn't my life that was at stake today."

"No," Phryne agreed quietly. "It was the lives of three little girls, and if saving them meant I had to be trussed up like a chicken for six hours--"

"It was nine. And you're damned lucky that was all that happened to you." Jack swallowed hard. "There's reason to suggest that this man is the same person responsible for a number of dismemberment murders in Sydney last year."

If Phryne was unnerved at the implication, her next words didn't show it. "I might as well have been dismembered as tied up on a cold room floor. I can barely turn my head." With some difficulty, she pulled a damp towel from around her neck. "Jack, could you call Dot, please? I need another hot wrap."

He did as he was asked, then went round behind Phryne's chair. "Hold still."

"Hmm? Jack, what are you--oh," she moaned softly, feeling his fingers descend on the back of her neck. "That's--urgh!"

"Your upper trapezius is like a rock," Jack muttered. "I said hold still."

Phryne did her best, gritting her teeth under the onslaught of his iron fingers as they sought to undo the knots that nine hours of captivity had wrought. "Where-did-you-learn-this?" she asked, her speech punctuated by the firm rocking motion of his hands. 

"I race," he reminded her simply. And then fell silent, working away at her tight muscles until at last, Phryne groaned in relief. 

"Oh my God," she sighed blissfully, "that's almost better than sex."

Jack came out from behind the chair, smiling his quiet half-smile. "Almost?"

"Just almost." Phryne resumed her tea, and when Dot came in with the hot towel, nearly melted under the warm weight. "You know, you never cease to amaze me, Jack. I would have never guessed you were an amateur masseur."

"I've always been good with my hands," said Jack blandly. 

Phryne raised an eyebrow. "Is that a challenge, Detective-Inspector?"

"It could be."

"In that case, perhaps you'd care to stay for supper? I'm sure I could find other knots for those hands to work, in the meantime..."


	40. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#13. “Kiss me.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by hello-beaniebeanie.

Phryne arrived at the warehouse just in time to see it explode in a ball of flames. “No,” she whispered, starting forward. 

Hands pulled her back. Arms clad in dark blue held her to keep her from rushing forward. “Tell me he wasn’t in there, Hugh,” she demanded, but she knew before he answered. 

“He went in alone, Miss,” said Senior Constable Collins. His boyish face was twisted by devastation. “We had no idea they had a bomb…”

Phryne wanted to rage at him. She wanted to punch something, shoot someone. 

She wanted Jack. She wanted—

“Phryne?”

She and Hugh looked up as one. “Sir!” cried Hugh in delight. “I thought—are you all right?”

Jack ran a hand over the back of his head. “A little singed, Collins, and I’ll need a new hat, but otherwise, I’m in one piece. I was under the loading dock when the thing went up.” He dropped his hand and took a step towards Phryne. “Phryne, I—”

She took three steps forward and grabbed him by his lapels. “Kiss me,” she demanded, even as she was dragging his head down to hers. 

Scorched and thirsty from more than the fire, Jack had no desire to argue.


	41. Fantasies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#38. “You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by hello-beaniebeanie.

The world was beige-coloured and vague around the edges. "Where am I?" Phryne heard herself ask, and wondered why her voice sounded so thick and far away. 

"You're in the women's hospital," said a man's voice, a warm familiar voice that spoke of security and friendship. "You ingested quite a bit of Foyle's paralysing drug. Dr. MacMillan insisted on keeping you for observation." 

"Jack... Jane..." 

"Jane's fine." A hand holding hers, as warm as the voice, as solid and steady. "Frightened but undaunted. She's definitely your daughter, Phryne."

"Foyle? He--"

"In police custody, under guard at the prison infirmary. He'll live to hang."

_Thank god._ The thought drifted across Phryne's consciousness. "What about... you...?" 

"Me? I'm elated. Not only is a dangerous criminal back behind bars where he belongs, but for once, I got to come to your rescue!" Phryne saw his gentle smile, or imagined she did. "You even fainted away in my arms. It was a boyhood fantasy come true." 

"Mine... too. Waited... so long for you to... sweep me off my feet..." Phryne grinned and closed her eyes. She didn't want to, but her eyelids felt so heavy. "Now I don't even... remember it..."

"Well, we'll see about an encore, when you're feeling better." She felt something soft brush across her knuckles. "Sleep now."

"Jack... stay?"

"I'll never leave," he promised, though she was asleep before the words left his lips.


	42. Accessories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [46\. “Hey, have you seen the..? Oh.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by hello-beaniebeanie.

Jack looked in the evidence locker. He looked in his desk. He looked through the various drawers behind the front desk. 

“Collins?”

“Sir?”

“What happened to that, uh, accessory we removed from the scene of the break-in at Miss Fisher’s house?”

“The one she used as a defensive weapon, sir?”

“That’s the one.”

Collins cleared his throat. “Uh, sir, she, um… asked for it back.”

“…Asked for it back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you just handed it to her?”

“No, sir, I didn’t touch it.” Jack wasn’t surprised by that. “But then she, um…” The constable began to blush very, very red. “She explained why she wanted it back, sir.”

“Ah.” Jack cleared his throat. “And then?”

“Well, sir, I, uh… I don’t quite remember.”

Jack rolled his lips together tightly. “Did she say if she’d be bringing it back? We may need to present it in court.”

“Yes, sir, Miss Fisher promised she would return the, uh, item, just as soon as she can purchase a replacement.”

“I see. Carry on, Collins.”

“Thank you, sir.”


	43. Need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#20. “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by lunalove-blr.

Phryne sat at her dressing table in her camiknickers, staring at her unadorned face. On the bed beside her were laid out the clothes Phryne had chosen for her courtroom appearance. In her open doorway, carefully positioned on the other side of the threshold, stood Jack.

"I'm frightened, Jack."

"I know." 

"I keep remembering before, how they couldn't make the murder charge stick. What if it happens again?"

"It won't. I promise."

She shook her head slowly. "It's like... some terrible dream, that I've been stuck in for the last fifteen years. What if this is still that dream, Jack?" Her voice began to shake. 

"If this is a dream, Phryne, then I need you to wake up."

His words were soft and assured, and so simple that she couldn't help smiling. "Just like that?"

"Just like that." He stood outside her doorway with his hands folded in front of him, unable to cross over, but still giving her strength. "I can't do this without you, Phryne. I need you."

She nodded, and began to brush her hair. It went without saying, that she needed him, too.


	44. Nice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#27. “I’m pregnant.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by lunalove-blr.
> 
> Luna had a very specific request for this prompt. I hope I've done it justice. ♥

Phryne lay curled in her bed in her luxurious hotel suite. The nausea had passed, for the moment. There couldn’t be any doubt, anymore, that the doctor was right. 

She had never wanted a family of her own. The mess her parents had made of theirs had clinched that for her when she was still a child. Her disastrous time with René (she shuddered, and pulled the blankets more tightly around her) had only strengthened that resolve. And now a single moment of unguarded passion on the night before she left Australia had thrust the decision upon her. 

What of her freedom? How did a child fit into her life now? For that matter, how did Jack?

She wasn’t a _nice_ woman. Nice women didn’t immediately consider seeking out a reputable doctor to help them out of trouble. Nice women wanted a family. And Phryne wasn’t a _family_ woman. 

But... she did have a family. Madcap as it was, the friends she had left in Melbourne were more family to her than her own mother and father. Dot and Mr. Butler, Mac, Cec and Bert... Phryne smiled through her tears at the idea of Jane, her Jane, as a big sister. She would be marvelous at it. And it went without saying that Jack would be a hundred times better a father than hers...

“To hell with ‘nice’,” Phryne muttered, throwing off the quilt and ringing the bell. “I need to send a telegram,” she said to the maid who answered her summons.

DARLING -(STOP)- W CHILD -(STOP)- PLS COME ENGLAND -(QUERY)- PHRYNE

Not quite twenty-four hours later, she had her answer.

DAMN IT WOMAN -(STOP)- HMS OLYMPIA DOCKS XMAS DAY -(STOP)- TAKE CARE -(QUERY)- I LOVE YOU -(STOP)- JACK


	45. Trapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#17. “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by cowalyn.

The logs crackled cozily in the library’s fireplace, while the storm raged outside with renewed vigor. “The celebrations will just have to be postponed until we can get back to Melbourne. If anyone still feels like celebrating by then.” Phryne poured out the whiskey and handed Jack his portion. “We could be stuck here for a good few days.

Jack grimaced. “Here’s to Christmas murders,” he said, toasting her dryly.

“Well, Christmas in July, at any rate.” She watched him sip his whiskey carefully. “How’s the head?”

“It aches. Probably not as much as Dr. MacMillan’s does, but at least we managed to get her back into the house before haring off down the mines.” He probed the back of his scalp with tender fingers. “I suppose I was due for one.”

“Hmm? What, a head injury?”

Jack gulped his whiskey and nodded. “Since knowing you, one bash on the head every six months or so is apparently my quota.” He rolled his woolly jumper-clad shoulders and shrugged. “But who needs a quiet life?”

Phryne smiled merrily, but her eyes were gentle. “My sentiments exactly,” she murmured over her glass.


	46. Once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#23. “Just once.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by cowalyn.
> 
> Follows on from the previous chapter. The one actual proper drabble I’ve managed so far – exactly 100 words!

The library door had a lock on it, and there were pillows and a quilt in the window seat. Everyone else in the house was asleep. With all these things in mind, and mindful of her own preparations, Phryne leaned over and touched the back of Jack’s hand with a question in her eyes. 

He returned her gaze first with confusion, then a blush of understanding, a low cough of hesitation, and at last, soft longing. “Perhaps... just the once.” And he reached for her.

Drowsing in his arms afterward, Phryne promised herself it would not be ‘just once’ forever.


	47. Presents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#26. “I got you a present.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by cowalyn.

Jack looked up from his paperwork. “Miss Fisher,” he greeted, “what brings you in today?” He raised his eyebrows theatrically. “Murder in high society? Or has the Spanish ambassador’s son’s kitten gone missing again?” He saw the little blue swallow brooch pinning her scarf to her blouse, and a tender expression came into his eyes.

Phryne smiled coyly in return. “I have something for you.” She produced from her purse a small bit of gray and red and perched herself familiarly on the corner of his desk, just next to him. “Since you were thoughtful enough to find me a swallow…” She leaned forward and took possession of the left lapel of his suit jacket. “I thought I would find you something…” She fastened the little thing carefully to the charcoal-coloured cloth. Jack raised a hand to trace her fingertips, and watched her fondly. “There. I think that suits you. And,” she added cheekily, “it matches your overcoat.”

He glanced down at the pin, and smiled, feeling a warm glow suffusing his chest and his cheeks. “A robin. How very appropriate, Miss Fisher.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack’s pin is intended to resemble a scarlet robin, rather than the robin Americans and Europeans are familiar with.


	48. Break and Enter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#30. “It’s not what it looks like.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by cowalyn.

Jack tipped his head to one side. “Then exactly what is it, Miss Fisher? Because from where I’m standing—” (which was on the threshold of his house’s front door) “—it looks very much like you’ve broken into my home—”

“I didn’t _break_ anything, Jack, the kitchen window was open!”

“Purloined food from my cupboards—” 

“Not from the cupboards, from the biscuit tin on the table.”

“And are currently standing in my front foyer in a state of rather intriguing undress.” Jack removed his overcoat and held it out to Phryne, who took it gratefully. “Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“…If it’s all the same to you, Jack, I’d much prefer to have a bath first.”

“Be my guest.” He rolled his eyes and stepped inside. “You know where the towels are.”


	49. Weight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#32. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca.

His lips moved in her hair. “I love you, Phryne.” It was no revelation to either of them, but he needed to say it.

She stilled against him, then raised herself up with her hands planted on his chest and looked at Jack with her beautiful pale green eyes, starred all round with black lashes. “And I love you,” she admitted, in the quiet hoarse whisper of an emotional weight that was almost too much to bear. “I love you, Jack… and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”

Gently, he brushed her hair back from her face, and stroked the lines of her cheeks and nose and lips with his fingers, as though he was trying to smooth away her fears with his touch. “Then do nothing,” Jack replied softly, drawing her close and holding her.


	50. Best Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#26. “I got you a present.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca. (Bert & Cec)

Cec and Alice's wedding was a small one, just them and Alice's mum and Cec's uncle, and Dot, and Bert. Bert wasn't much for churches, not since before the war and definitely not since after. But Cec was his mate, after all, even if he was doing a damn fool thing, going to set up housekeeping. 

"Thanks," said Cec, after the ceremony. "Means a lot t' me, Bert, you standin' up with me."

"Ar. Well, who else were you gonna get t' be your best man? Collins? Here." Bert reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket watch. It was a bit shabby and old-fashioned, but had clearly been well cared for. "Enjoy your honeymoon, and be sure t' come back on time."

Cec handled the battered silver timepiece with care. "This is the same watch you carried through the war, Bert."

"I know. An' don't you tell me you can't take it. It's a gift, inn'it?" Bert grinned lopsidedly and clapped Cec on the shoulder. "C'mon, let's get you back to the missus."


	51. Houses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#31. “You lied to me”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca. (Phryne & Dot)

Dottie Williams – Dottie Collins now – sat uneasily in Miss Phryne’s parlour. It had been a very long time since she had felt so unsettled in her employer’s presence. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth, Miss? About the house?”

Phryne set her teacup down quietly. “It wasn’t my place to tell, Dot. Hugh bought the cottage fair and square, and paid in full. I wasn’t even involved in the transaction. It was all done through my business agent.”

“But you were the one who told me and Hugh about the house in the first place,” Dot insisted, twisting the hem of her cardigan between her fingers. “And the agent was so kind and even gave us a better price because we were newlyweds—”

“That’s got nothing to do with me,” said Phryne soothingly. “Jenkins has a soft spot for young couples. And it was still a fair market value.”

Dot sat up a little straighter and squared her shoulders. “You still should have told us you were the owner, Miss. I would have insisted on paying the full price.”

“And I would have turned right around and told Jenkins to sell you an even grander house for your troubles.” The light of battle was in Phryne’s eyes, and her grin was positively impish. “I didn’t do anything for you and Hugh except make your search a little bit easier. If it makes you feel any better, I promise to overcharge you when it comes time for you and Hugh and all the impending little Collinses to move to a bigger house.”

Dot blushed prettily. “One thing at a time, Miss,” she murmured, with a smile.


	52. Brave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#29. “I thought you were dead.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca. (Phryne & Jane)
> 
> Follows on from [Chapter 41](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11134043).

Phryne woke, reluctantly, to the sound of someone sniffling. In the back of her mind, she could hear her mother scolding whoever it was. “Blow your nose,” she said without opening her eyes.

“Oh!”

The one word, choked with tears, made Phryne take notice. She rolled over in her hospital bed. “Hello, Jane,” she said, with a tired smile. "Oh, it’s lovely to see you.”

The girl’s face was swollen and marked by tear tracks, but she was otherwise unharmed. “Miss, you took so long to wake up, I thought— I was scared that—”

“Sssh, darling. I’m all right.” With an effort, Phryne pushed herself upright and pulled her daughter (everyone called Jane that, now) into a tight hug. “My brave girl, I'm all right.”


	53. Smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#33. “Please don’t do this.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca. (Phryne & Mac)

Phryne stared at her best friend in dismay. “Mac, no. You can’t… you can’t be serious.”

“I’m in deadly earnest. Damn it, I have to do _something_ , Phryne,” the doctor snapped, irritably puffing on a cigarette. “The way he treats the girls in that factory—it’s not merely shameful, it is _illegal_. And if the police won’t put a stop to it—”

“Mac. You’ve already been accused of one murder in your life, and under very similar circumstances.”

“So who’s going to believe that I would actually commit a murder of the same kind? It sounds like a plot device in one of those hack detective novels you’re so fond of.” Mac ground out her cigarette in the ashtray Mr. Butler had provided, and immediately produced another. 

“Jack would.”

“…I know you’re sweet on him, but would you really help your pet detective put me in the noose?”

“Of course not. But if I refused to help him, which I would… he’d know why.” Phryne stopped Mac’s hand, which was in the process of carrying a lit match to the cigarette at her lips. “Let’s go to Jack. Now, together.”

“He’s a homicide detective, Phryne, and no one’s been killed. Yet.”

“But he’ll know someone who can help you, and help those girls in the factory. Someone on the vice squad, perhaps, or… I don’t know, Mac, but I cannot let you simply murder a man in cold blood.” She gripped Mac’s wrist tightly. “No matter how much he clearly deserves it.”

The doctor’s angry brown eyes locked with the detective’s green ones. 

Finally, Mac sighed. “Fine, fine… just let me finish my cigarette.”


	54. Punch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#28. “Marry me?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by sarah-francesca.

Phryne and Jack stood close together and watched while Collins and another constable wrestled the leader of the Braley Gang into the police car. Jack shifted his coat over his wounded arm, which was currently useless and in a sling. Phryne raised a hand to the bandage on her head. It had not been an easy arrest. “Let’s walk along the shore path for a bit, Jack.”

The cool salt air and the warmth of the summer evening revived them both. Phryne’s hand found its way into Jack’s, and he squeezed her fingers tightly as though to reassure himself that she was still whole and sound. “This was not how I’d hoped to welcome you home,” he said, with a trace of his usual dry humor. 

“Well, now,” she drawled in return, “if you’d come after me like I asked—”

“Practically ordered.”

“—this whole mess could have been avoided.”

“I don’t see how my going to England could have prevented you from throwing yourself at a thug with a cosh.”

“Well, _obviously_ if you’d made it to England, I would have been too busy enjoying my honeymoon to have been here to get between you and Frank Braley’s damned cosh.”

Jack stopped. “That head injury must be more serious than I thought,” he said, looking sideways at her, “because I thought I just heard you say the word ‘honeymoon.’”

“You did.”

“…Huh.” He pulled his lower lip between his teeth for a second or two. “And just who would you have deigned to go on a honeymoon _with_ , Miss Fisher?”

“Jack.” Phryne stepped in front of him, laid her hand against his chest, and looked up keenly into his face. What she was looking for, Jack couldn’t know. But he saw something in her eyes… something he’d been missing for a long time. “There’s no other man I’d ask this of.”

His jaw tightened once or twice before he could speak. “It’s just like you,” he said, with a sweet crooked smile, and leaning down to kiss her carefully. “Just like a modern woman to beat me to the punch.”


	55. Both

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#3. “Please, don’t leave.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.
> 
> Aw yeah, startin' this Friday off right... with unrelieved angst. Oops?

“So... you’re giving up me instead.”

Jack nodded, like a man who’s been told that he’s dying, and already knows. 

“If you did that, Jack, I would feel... I would feel like it was you in that wreckage.” The lump in her throat was threatening to choke her, the tears in her eyes burning the image of Jack, about to walk out of her life, into her brain. Phryne gripped the arms of her chair for support. “Please don’t leave.”

_Don’t give up on our partnership. Don’t give up on me._

“What would be the point of staying?” he asked, eyes never leaving her face, but searching for something more to hang his hopes on. “When we both are who we are.”

Phryne made herself smile, though inside she was bleeding. “That is the point, Jack,” she said simply, gesturing for him to _(please)_ take the chair beside her.


	56. Kept

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#12. “I think we need to talk.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.

Jack looked at the cufflinks Phryne held out to him. His lean face twisted into a frown. "Miss Fisher," he sighed at last, "I can't take these." 

"Oh, rot," she retorted, smiling and shaking the little box temptingly. "They're a gift."

"It's not my birthday, or Christmas, or any special occasion that would provide at least a tiny bit of an excuse for you giving me _another_ expensive present."

"Why should I need an excuse? I like giving my favorite people things."

"You don't give Miss Williams sapphires."

"I would if I thought she would wear them. Besides, Dottie doesn't need the temptation of sapphires to make her smile."

"And I do?" Gently but firmly, Jack pushed the little jewelry box away. "The new ties were one thing. Then the tie pin. Then the collar studs. And the new wristwatch--"

"That was entirely practical, after you ruined yours at Queenscliff."

"But these constant and entirely inappropriate presents... It has to stop. People..." His cheekbones darkened. "People at the station are beginning to talk."

"Oh? ...Oh dear." Phryne's face was perfectly solemn, but her eyes began to sparkle more brightly than the sapphires. "That does put you in an... awkward situation."

"One which I have done nothing to deserve. So if you would, please, take these back..."

"They're a gift, Jack. You know I don't expect repayment." 

"But my colleagues all think I'm a kept man!"

She stepped untowardly close and slipped the velvet box into his trouser pocket. "It's not my fault that people are talking. After all, _you're_ the one who's choosing to wear these expensive and highly inappropriate presents."


	57. Dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#37. “Wanna dance?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.
> 
> Before anyone asks, yes, this is going to get a longer treatment. I just need to, uh, not be at work to write it, if you know what I mean. ;)

The house was dark and quiet, with only the hall light left on to welcome the lady of the house and her escort, upon their late return from a night on the town. They skimmed lightly through the gate and up the walkway, wrapped in each other’s arms, and stood some moments on the front porch before either one even thought of unlocking the front door.

Jack pressed Phryne close against Wardlow’s outer wall, hitching her thigh over his hip, tugging her long shimmering skirt up and her silk lingerie down. “May I have this dance, Miss Fisher?” he growled, soft and hungry, against the pulse in her throat. 

She gasped out a laugh and pawed impatiently at the fly of his black dress trousers. “Another, Inspector Robinson? So greedy… you’ve had every one of my dances tonight… and for some time… _oh_ , darling…”

He ground his pelvis to hers, his big hands cupping her buttocks. Phryne’s other leg came up to clamp against his ribs. “I’m a very greedy man, Miss Fisher… and so far all of tonight’s dances were in public.”

“Mmm… a private dance, then, sir?” she teased, dragging her teeth over his bottom lip. “A waltz, perhaps?” She reached between them and wrapped her fingers around his cock.

Jack, his lips busy at her clavicle, groaned deep in his chest. He took the hem of her gown’s décolletage between his teeth and jerked, tearing the satin and sending sequins flying. “A waltz,” he rumbled, nipping at the soft skin of her breast. Phryne whimpered in delight and grabbed for the doorknob. “A long, slow, _close_ waltz…”

Sequins glittered on the front steps for a moment, and then the door closed, and the lights went out.


	58. Corners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#14. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.
> 
> Apologies to Dorothy L. Sayers. I cribbed a line.

It was late, after midnight, and when she heard the knock, Phryne cracked open her front door with a sense of déjà vu. Jack’s solemn face and guarded eyes peered at her through the slight opening; in the second before she stepped back to allow him to enter, Phryne saw a flash of something that made her heart ache. 

He didn’t ask if it was too late this time. She had said “Never,” and he had clearly taken her at her word. He removed his hat and dropped it on the hall table without looking. His eyes never left her. “Sanderson’s been removed to the city jail, pending his trial. The judge determined that he was too high-profile a prisoner to be granted bail.”

He didn’t mention Fletcher and Phryne had no wish to bring him up. Before she could say anything, Jack continued. “I didn’t intend to come here tonight,” he said, looking down and fiddling with a worn spot on the cuff of his coat sleeve. “But I…” His lips pressed together, hard. “This whole business has been a nightmare for all of us. I don’t know what it’s going to mean for the police department… for me. I’ve faced a lot of awful things in my life, and I’ve never so badly wanted to find a corner to crawl into, to hide.”

Phryne absently clasped the front of her dressing gown and reached for his worn cuff. “And?” 

Jack looked down into her soap-clean face, her eyes devoid of mascara and sly double entendres. “Well… you’re my corner, and I’ve come to hide. If that’s all right.”

She nodded. “Always.”


	59. And Then What

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#15. “So, I found this waterfall…”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.
> 
> Follows on from Chapter 48. Very silly.

Jack stood outside his bathroom, listening to Phryne’s explanation and frowning. “So, you found a waterfall. And then what?”

“Well, then there were eels, and a sawfish, and a remarkably filthy vagabond who fancied himself something of a bushranger.” He heard the sound of water splashing. “Oh, and a mad bull!”

“Uh huh.” Jack leaned on the wall and wondered if her prolonged exposure to nature had sent her mind wandering. “And what happened then?”

“…It’s rather ludicrous… I’m not sure if you’ll believe me.”

“Try me.”

“Well, then the zookeeper turned up.”

“…Be right back, Miss Fisher.” Jack turned on his heel and headed for the whiskey. He felt as though he’d earned it.


	60. Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#20. “Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.

He swallowed the whiskey with more speed than politeness, which despite the obvious quality of the liquor, made his head spin for a second or two. Inspired by his momentary light-headedness, he took a chance. "You might as well call me Jack," he told her, with a smile that almost creaked across his face, it had been so long since he'd uses it last. "Everyone else does."

She looked at him with surprise. Deep surprise, and pleasure. "Very well, Jack," she said, her voice rather throaty with the unanticipated emotion. "And you may call me Phryne." She grinned in return, an unadorned and schoolgirlish expression. "Although hardly anyone else does."


	61. Guilty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#41. “You did all of this for me?”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.

Phryne Fisher strode into Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson’s office and plunked herself down on the corner of his desk as though she owned the place. “I just had a very interesting conversation with my solicitor,” she said cheerily, without preamble.

Jack didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Did you have to explain why you almost got yourself arrested again?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And no. Actually, she wanted to talk to me about Jane.”

That made Jack look up, with a new furrow in his brow. He had become unexpectedly fond of Phryne’s ward Jane, since helping to rescue her from a hellacious ‘foster home’. “What about Jane?”

“Well, not strictly about Jane, but about how I came to be her guardian. Apparently the local welfare office sent over some very interesting documents.” Phryne leaned forward, spearing Jack with an intent, no-nonsense look that never boded well for him or for anyone else. “You told me you’d ‘had a word to Welfare’ about Jane.”

“I did.”

“Jack. It was more than a word. You _vouched_ for me, for my credibility and my ‘moral character,’ and my fitness as a parent. And you pledged your own word as a police officer that she’d be better off with me than in the care of the State.”

_She’d be better off back on the street than in the care of the State,_ Jack thought darkly. His good deed uncovered, all he could do was spread his hands. “Guilty as charged,” he said, with a lopsided smile. 

“You did all that, pulled all those strings, for me.” 

“For Jane.”

“That was only our second case—”

“‘Our’ second case?”

“You could have been putting your reputation in real jeopardy. After all, you hardly knew me at that point.” She narrowed her eyes at him, clearly puzzled. “Why?”

Jack rolled his broad shoulders in a shrug. “I knew you were a kid from Collingwood who made good. I figured that Jane deserved the same chance.” He rescued his fountain pen from her grasp and went back to his paperwork. “Thank you for not making me regret that decision, Miss Fisher,” he said gruffly, refusing to acknowledge the softness with which she was now looking at him.


	62. Monsoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [#43. “YOU DID WHAT?!”](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/129005047382/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) Requested by edeainfj.

Phryne wired her mother from Vienna, to let her know that the weather was clear and that she and Father were on schedule to land in Croydon late on the following afternoon. She inquired of the telegraph operator at the same time, whether there were any messages from Melbourne. Any messages from Jack.

There was nothing. No word from Jack for the last three weeks of her flight. 

Phryne wouldn’t admit, in the morning, that she’d cried herself to sleep the night before. She hadn’t thought it possible to miss anyone quite as much as she missed her dour detective inspector, his hands and his eyes and his damned solid common sense and the smile lurking in the corners of his mouth.

_Come after me, Jack Robinson._

“Well,” she told herself as she and the wayward Baron climbed into the aeroplane for the last leg of their journey, “if that wasn’t clear enough for the man, then I’m well out of it.”

And she kept repeating that thought for all of the seven hundred and seventy-five miles it took her to fly from Vienna to the Croydon Airport, where her mother and Cousin Guy had said they would meet her. 

But Guy wasn’t standing on the runway beside Lady Margaret Fisher. There was a different man with her, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a sunburnt face, wearing an unfamiliar dark overcoat but clasping in his very familiar hands a very, very familiar brown fedora. 

Phryne’s smile spread slowly across her face. Unconsciously, her gloved fingers rose to caress the little blue swallow pinned at her breast. “Jack…” She scrambled down from the backseat of the plane almost before it had come to a stop, and then she was running full-tilt towards him. 

He met her halfway, just as he did before, but this time there was no slowing down, no stopping to say hello. Jack barreled at her and caught her in his arm, and then he was kissing her as he had the day they’d said good-bye. “You beat me here,” Phryne gasped, laughing and crying and struggling to breathe. “How, how the _hell_ did you beat me here? I was in the air for a month, you couldn’t have found a ship that fast.”

“Believe me, the second the plane took off, I wished I’d had.”

“Plane? You flew here?”

“Well, I was flown here. I know one or two daredevil pilots myself, you know. Old Army mates.”

“But Jack, you _loathe_ the whole idea of flying!”

“More than ever, now,” he shuddered. Jack leaned his forehead on hers and breathed in the scent of her. “But I had to. I couldn’t stay away.” His fingers came up to touch the swallow broach, and hers joined his, and then his lips joined hers. 

“But Jack,” she needled again, when they could bear to part, “that doesn’t explain how you got here before I did.”

“Oh, that was simple enough. We flew straight from Sourabaya to Bangkok, instead of hop-scotching all over Java and Sumatra,” Jack explained, unable to keep a bit of a smug grin off his face at having _finally_ managed to outwit the Honourable Miss Fisher. 

Phryne’s jaw dropped. “You flew over the South China Sea? In the middle of _monsoon_ season?”

“I’ve never been so terrified in my life. Or so sick. I don’t think I ate again until we got to Calcutta. But it cut a good four or five days off our trip. I’ve been here for the last week, making friends with the Baroness.”

“Is that so?” She couldn’t help laughing at that. “And what does Mother think of you?”

Margaret broke off her joyous scolding of her husband to answer that for herself. “Mother thinks you’d better damn well keep this one, Phryne!”

On very rare occasions, Phryne was more than happy to do what her mother said.


	63. Technique

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I told you not to tell me so.” Requested by afterdinnerminx.
> 
> (PS: I'm baaaaa-aaaaaaack...)

“Phryne, I know I’m not as experienced or as versed in technique as your previous paramours, but could you please stop bringing that up when we’re in bed?”

Phryne stretched luxuriously beneath him. She was glutted with lovemaking and feeling playful. “Why Jack,” she said, with studied surprised innocence, “if you don’t want me to talk about them, why do you keep asking if you measure up?”

He grimaced and reclaimed his side of the bed, rather grumpily. 

“You really have nothing to worry about, you know,” she continued, in the most placid of tones. “After all, you’re very good with your hands, although not quite as technically brilliant as Lin Chung. And you’re quite good with your mouth, although perhaps a little lacking in boldness... unlike Rinaldo. And, hmm, you can be deliciously masterful at times, even if not quite so much as Captain—”

Jack clamped the pillow round his ears. “I’m not listening.”

The mattress shifted slightly and Phryne rolled over and pressed her lithe, warm body to his naked back. “Darling,” she murmured, teasing the nape of his neck with her lips, “whatever experience or finesse of technique you may lack... never forget: out of all of those ‘paramours,’ you’re the only one I want in my bed now.”

“That,” Jack admitted, as her hands began to roam temptingly over his body, “definitely counts for a lot.”


	64. Snails

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Something happened to me yesterday.” Requested by afterdinnerminx.
> 
> An honest-to-goodness drabble! Exactly 100 words!

_I’ve eaten snails,_ Jack mused to himself over a solitary nightcap. _I’ve eaten snails, and I’ve kissed Phryne Fisher._

Both were things he’d never thought he would ever be called upon to do. 

_The snails, I could’ve done without. Tonight... no, yesterday. God, has it been a whole day already?_ He raised his fingers to his lips, seeking the imprint of hers. The tip of his tongue flicked out questioningly. There was nothing left, no perfume, no lipstick. Only the memory, and the longing in his mouth and in his gut. 

_What am I going to do?_ he wondered miserably.


	65. Warm Milk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’d rather do that than anything else.” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

“I lost her, Jack... I lost her.”

There was nothing he could say to counter that. In the strictest sense, after all, it was true. She ought to have been watching her sister, rather than the magic show. The larger picture, the grander scheme of Janey’s disappearance, meant nothing to Phryne. She had carried the burden of guilt for fifteen years, and it seemed she was not ready to admit that she could let that go. 

It was an hour at least, before she spoke again. She looked up from the contemplation of the carpet and seemed surprised to still find him sitting beside her. “It’s late,” she said, sounding exhausted. “You don’t need to keep me company while I wallow in the past.”

His first impulse was to smile, the little half-smile he kept for her these days. But he couldn’t make it reach his lips in time, and so when he spoke, his words carried a meaning he had intended to keep secret. “I’ll stay, if you want me to stay. I can stay all night. I don’t have anywhere else I need to be, or would rather be.”

Phryne did manage a smile, though she looked tired enough to cry herself to sleep. “I’m afraid I won’t be a very entertaining hostess.”

“It’s all right, Phryne.”

She bit her lip hard and looked gratefully at him, then lapsed back into silence. 

At some point he got up and went to inspect the kitchen. He brought back sandwiches and warm milk. He poured a little whiskey into Phryne’s cup and pushed it gently into her hands.


	66. Maniac

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m flirting with you.” Requested by desiskipper.

“Care for a dance, Miss Fisher?”

_Oh, Jack, darling, I hope you know what you’re in for..._ “Are you sure you want to risk it?”

_You have no idea what I’ll risk for you, Phryne, my love..._ “What’s the risk?”

_Ooh, cheeky!_ “Well, I have waltzed with the best...” _If you think I’m to be caught that easily, Inspector, my Inspector..._ “French presidents, English princes, American film stars...” _Of course, none of them had your **other** qualities, Jack..._ “The waltz is a very serious dance.”

_Two can play at this game, Miss Fisher..._ “And I’m a serious man.”

_...Oh my, he **is** serious... how delicious..._ “My mother lost all reason when she was waltzed.”

_Have you any reason to lose, my charming maniac, hmm?_ “Well if she hadn’t...” _Oh God, have I ever deliberately touched her before?_ “...This would be a world without a certain Phryne Fisher in it.”

_Nothing should be as erotic as this man taking my hand... touching my waist... I always knew you’d turn my head, Jack Robinson._

“And what kind of world would that be?”


	67. Three Sheets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Are you drunk?” Requested by desiskipper.

“I am,” said Phryne Fisher with remarkable firmness, even for her, “wonderfully tipsy, deliciously alive, and incensed that you would think me so careless with my alcohol. Drunk, indeed...”

“You are also,” said Jack Robinson, trying very hard to be stern, “three sheets to the wind, and under suspicion of having escaped a notoriously illegal club minutes before it was raided. To say nothing of being in danger of being sent to the lock-up for drunk and disorderly and resisting arrest. As it is, Detective Greely will have a fine black eye.”

“I told him I could walk to the car unaided. I didn’t need his help—” Jack caught her under the arm as she teetered and lowered her into a chair. “—and I certainly didn’t need that great oaf manhandling me.”

“So I should consider myself lucky that all I walked away with was a hacked shin, the one time I had to arrest you.”

“De _cid_ edly,” Phryne said, pronouncing each syllable very carefully. 

“Ah hah. Mr. Butler?”

The omnipresent servant appeared with a beneficent smile and a cup of strong black coffee. “I’ll take it from here, Inspector.”

Phryne pouted. “Leaving so soon, Jack? My night ended so abruptly, surely you can make it up to me _some_ how.” She held out a beseeching and very lovely white arm. 

“Ask me again in the morning, Miss Fisher. Provided it is still morning by the time you make it down to the station... which I very much doubt will be the case.”


	68. Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Requested by desiskipper.
> 
> (Skating the parameters of the prompt here...)

She sat down in the armchair. It was further away from Jack than she wanted to be, just now, but she thought perhaps he might appreciate the distance. “I’m sorry I barged in on you.”

“What’ve I told you about apologizing?”

“I mean it, Jack. It was the one thing you’ve ever asked me for, to not come and find you at your home.”

He pursed his lips, nodded, sighed. “Well, it’s not as if you came here intending to invade my privacy. But I must confess, I would rather you hadn’t seen me like this.”

“Jack,” said Phryne gently, feeling horrible, “it’s not a crime to have an injury.”

“It's just... frustrating. I’ve kept myself in top training, I’ve done strengthening exercises… I’d hoped to be over this damned thing by now.” His head dropped back onto his pillow. “But all that happens is that I get older, and this gets older with me.”

“It’s a shrapnel wound, Jack, not a missing limb.” The jocular words came out a little harsher than Phryne intended. “And we all have our off days. There’s no shame in that. Not even for the brave and noble Detective Inspector Jack Robinson.”

Jack snorted. “Ah yes, the brave and noble detective inspector, who’s currently lying immobile in his skivvies because of a gammy leg.”

“Only temporarily. Even heroes have to recuperate sometimes.”

“And when do you recuperate, Miss Fisher, hmm?”

She rested her chin on her folded hands and smirked at him. “As often as I can.”


	69. Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Please don’t argue.” Requested by desiskipper.

Arguments, to Phryne, were loud. Loud and angry, and often violent. They involved the raising of voices and the waving of hands. Sometimes objects were thrown. Sometimes punches were thrown. That was what her childhood had taught her. That was what Rene had taught her. 

Jack raised nothing, not his voice, not his fists. He didn’t advance; he withdrew, as though to hide and lick his wounds, and the more Phryne tried to draw him back out of his lair, the more snappish and upset he became. It was the look in his eyes that hurt her the most, the expression of pain and frustration, of wanting what he thought he could not have. 

It went straight to her most vulnerable places, past all of the barriers that love of independence and revulsion of being possessed had bred in her.

“Don’t do that to me again, Jack,” she told him, after he had decided they were a waltz rather than a tango. 

“Don’t do that to _me_ again,” he retorted.

“I meant walking away. Giving up without a fight.”

His eyes were warm and unreadable. “You’d rather I fight than simply bow out gracefully? And let you win?”

There had been nothing graceful about his departure from her life. It had left them both heart-wounded, bleeding invisibly, like ghosts. “It’s not a contest. We do… what we do… best, together. And if this waltz is to end, it should end with us leaving the dance floor at the same time. Don’t… don’t take that choice away from me.”

He pursed his lips in the thoughtful way he had, but beneath the lightness of his countenance, his eyes were quiet and serious. “So the next time you almost get yourself killed, you’re saying we should… what? Fight it out like gentlemen?”

“Something like that,” Phryne said with a slow smile. Her heart bounded within her ribs. “But be careful, Jack. I don’t fight fair.”


	70. Anniversary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “All that I am, and all that I have, I give to you.” 
> 
> Follows on from [Chapter 54](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11152031). This one’s for me. ♥

“I can’t believe it’s really been six years,” Phryne murmured, stroking her husband’s chest lightly. It was still very strange to think of Jack that way; ‘partner’ came more naturally to her mind, even after all that time. “Can you?”

“I can’t believe it ever happened at all,” Jack rumbled with a smile, and pressed a kiss into her hair. “Sometimes I still think that day on the beach was nothing but a dream. To say nothing of the event itself.”

Phryne chuckled. “The ceremony is a bit hazy in my mind.”

“Hmm, probably because you’re remembering it through a fog of whisky and wedding cake,” Jack teased. His fingers curled around her bare shoulder. “Any regrets?”

She stretched up to kiss him. “Not a one.”


	71. Pictures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “So THAT’S what that’s for!” (Phryne/Mac) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Phryne winced and flinched away from Mac’s normally welcome ministrations. “Sorry, sorry,” Mac murmured, and lowered her head to add her tongue to the work of her fingers. 

But after a few moments, Phryne shook her head. “I’m sorry, darling. The heart is willing, but...”

Mac smoothed her hands soothingly up and down Phryne’s creamy thighs. “I think I’ve got something that’ll help.” She grabbed Phryne’s black satin dressing gown (the one with the fighting cocks) and sashed it round her strong, supple middle. “Won’t be a moment,” she promised, with a fleeting grin at the picture Phryne made, splayed across the purple-and-gold satin coverlet. She slipped out of the bedroom, leaving Phryne wondering. 

When she returned, it was with her doctor’s bag. “I’m sure it’s nothing _that_ serious,” Phryne laughed, though her legs drew together involuntarily. 

Mac grinned and tucked a long wayward strange of red-gold hair behind her ear. “I promise, it’s not drastic.” She set the bag down beside the bed and shed the dressing gown. Phryne gazed up at her lover approvingly. 

“You’d make a lovely painting,” she murmured, a little wistfully. 

“The only painting I want to sit for is my inaugural portrait as Dean of Medicine at the university,” Mac replied, stooping to fish something out of her bag. “So we’ll both be waiting for a while.” She leaned over Phryne and kissed her, long and thoroughly, and then resumed her place between her lover’s thighs, this time, with a small tube like a toothpaste tube. “Now, this might be a little cold at first...”

Phryne felt Mac’s fingers again, coated with something pleasantly cool and slippery. “What is—ohhh,” she sighed, as Mac’s skillful doctor’s fingers pressed into her with practiced ease. “Oh, that is marvelous... _Much_ better. Mmm... oh yes... what is it?”

“It’s a new product, American stuff. It’s meant to be used in clinics, for pelvic exams. But some... adventurous medical friends of mine hinted that it could be put to a far more pleasant use...” Mac grinned and twisted her fingers a little. Phryne gasped sharply and grabbed for her head. “I take it you agree?”

“Oh, decidedly...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End note: I’ve encountered different dates for the invention/marketing of KY Jelly. The [US Patent and Trademark Office](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=54,124&caseType=US_REGISTRATION_NO&searchType=statusSearch) registered the trademark in 1906. The [Johnson & Johnson website](http://www.k-y.ca/faq) says it was introduced as a personal lubricant in 1917. And [The Book of Kink](https://books.google.com/books?id=SFcWmcGLXJ4C&pg=PT120&lpg=PT120&dq=ky+jelly+1927&source=bl&ots=e5FuXG8YUU&sig=be_Dd8WGcj42RhM91-HhV7AFNzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBWoVChMIy7fpg6apyAIVzBw-Ch1JIQy8#v=onepage&q=ky%20jelly%201927&f=false) says it was invented in 1927 for pelvic exams and sold only to doctors. Obviously for the purposes of this short fic, I’ve gone with the third option. ;)


	72. Stepping Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I cannot believe you left Hugh standing there!” Requested by dr-donna-10.

“I didn’t ‘leave’ him there,” Jack retorted, settling comfortably into his seat, “he refused to get on the train. Besides, it’s not like I have any control over when a train leaves the station.”

Phryne leveled a mostly-disapproving glare at him. “He didn’t refuse, Jack. I don’t think he even noticed the warning whistle.”

“That will happen, when a man’s distracted from his job.” Jack unfolded the newspaper he’d bought and rustled it with an air of finality. “If he’s so smitten with Miss Williams—which he is—he should ask her to step out with him again. I hear the Firemen and Policemen’s Ball was a rousing success.”

“Oh? You didn’t go?”

Phryne’s tone of innocent inquiry was wasted on Jack; he simply lifted his paper higher until it hid his face. “I’m too old for those things.”

“Or just too skittish to ask the right girl to step out with you?”

The inspector peered suspiciously over his newspaper for a second or two, and then resumed his perusal of the latest football scores.


	73. Yesterday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “WHAT are you wearing?” Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack blinked at his companion of the evening, permitted himself a yawn and a good long stretch, and then looked at Phryne again. “Don’t you have clothes you keep here?”

“Of course I do, Jack,” she said blithely, sitting down on her side of his bed and twisting round to look at him. “On the right hand side of your bureau, bottom drawer. And in a bit of the wardrobe.”

“Then why aren’t you wearing them?”

She flipped the tails of the shirt nonchalantly. “This was easier.”

“I mean, you’ve worn my pajamas before and neither of us minded that, but... why yesterday’s shirt? It’s filthy.”

She speared him with a look. “It’s _not_ filthy,” she said, in a tone that reminded him that his girl from Collingwood unfortunately knew exactly what filthy clothes looked like. “I just needed something to cover myself with while I made tea, and I couldn’t find your dressing gown. Besides,” her pale lips curved into a tender little smile, “it smells like you.”

Jack’s heart and cheekbones warmed with pleasure. “All right,” he conceded, almost shyly. “But... why yesterday’s tie, as well?”

Phryne’s smile deepened. She turned the rest of the way and began to crawl toward him, her chin jutting out in challenge. 

Chuckling, Jack reached out, took gently hold of his tie, and drew her in close.


	74. Martyrdom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t like it.” (Jack & Jane) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jane peered into the dining room and then looked at Jack in dismay. “Do we _have_ to eat snails?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jack replied, straightening his dinner tie with the air of a martyr. “Mr. Butler’s been cooking for hours to impress Miss Fisher’s French guests, and you know how he gets when he’s on a mission.”

“But why do I have to eat with them? I’m supposed to be studying for my history test.” She eyed Jack critically. “Does it have to do with a case?”

“If I say yes, will you stop complaining and suffer with me?”

“…Maybe.”

“Then yes, Janey, it’s for a case. And that’s not even a polite untruth; Monsieur Bouchard is a person of interest. Madame Bouchard is even more so. And getting them to trust us is essential if Miss Fisher and I are going to progress in our investigations.” He smiled at Jane. “There, will that do?”

“Oh, I suppose,” Jane sighed, with the sort of huff that only a put-upon teenager could muster. “As long as they aren’t bringing any of their sons with them. Aunt Prudence has been trying to play match-maker.”

Jack refrained from giving way to a paternal shriek of horror at the very idea. “Actually, the Bouchards don’t have any sons. Just a daughter. About your age.” He raised an eyebrow at Jane’s suddenly rekindled interest. “And very pretty, too…”

“Well… I still don’t like snails.”

“Neither do I,” Jack said sympathetically.


	75. Manuals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Are you sure that’s how it’s supposed to work?” (Mac & Phryne) Requested by sheldonslog.

Mac lounged (she was very good at lounging, even if she didn’t get many opportunities for it) on a wooden crate, munching an apple and frowning at Phryne Fisher’s backside. Not that there was the slightest thing wrong with Phryne’s backside, but at the moment it was all Mac could see of her. A great loud _whoosh_ of static filled the air momentarily and then was cut violently off. “Got it working yet?”

Phryne’s backside (uncharacteristically clad in hard-working dungarees) heaved up out of the Hispano, followed by her back, her scarf-covered black hair, and finally, her glaring face. “How many times are you going to ask me that?”

“Until you admit you have no idea what you’re doing and look at the manual.”

“I did look at the manual!”

“You flipped through it once when the radio was delivered. Last week.”

“Well, then _you_ try installing this bloody thing.”

“I’m a surgeon, Phryne dear, not a motor mechanic or an electrician.” Mac took another bite of her apple. It was nice, sometimes, to find things that Phryne Fisher could _not_ do.


	76. First Prize

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t see you there.” Requested by timetravelbypen.

“You’re unusually quiet tonight, Jack,” Phryne commented, her arms wrapped around her drawn up knees. “I hope today’s race didn’t tire you out too much.”

His eyes flickered to her briefly, and then back to the contemplation of his drink. “So you did know about it.”

“Of course. I do try to keep up with your sporting accomplishments,” she teased. 

Jack swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “Sometimes, Miss Fisher… I wonder if it’s a mistake to drink in your company. Lately I’m never sure if the alcohol helps me let down my guard, or forces me to keep my distance…”

“…Jack?”

“I didn’t see you at the race today. You’re always in the crowd at the finish line, but today… you weren’t there.”

A hint of shy pleasure ghosted through Phryne’s eyes. “I hadn’t realized you’d noticed,” she said softly. “I did try not to stand out.”

“That, Miss Fisher, is at all times a futile attempt.” Jack set aside his whiskey. “I won the Semifinals cup today. Another decoration for my office, but it was a hell of a race. And when I looked for you and you weren’t there… well…” He shrugged, and a lopsided smile tugged at his lips. “It seemed rather anticlimactic, without my biggest fan.”

“I had a prior engagement with Aunt Prudence. I _knew_ I should have cancelled at the last minute.” Phryne grinned at him, her expression tinged with regret that she had missed seeing his big moment. Then she rose from her chair and reseated herself in Jack’s lap. “In that case,” she murmured, twining her arms around his neck, “allow me to congratulate the winner of this year’s Semifinals…”


	77. Lost and Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Where did you find that?” Requested by timetravelbypen.

“I always knew if I left you alone in my house, I’d regret it.”

Phryne’s head whipped round guiltily at the first sound of his voice. Jack was leaning in the doorway of the spare bedroom he used as a store room, his arms crossed, looking at her with a combination of amused vindication and disappointment. “Jack, I-I’m sorry,” she said quickly, her cheeks blazing. “I swear, I hadn’t intended to go rummaging through your private life, I was just—”

“Rummaging?”

“Bored, and looking for something to amuse myself.” 

“You could’ve tried my library.”

She shrugged, still feeling unnaturally abashed. “It’s very well-stocked, but your taste in literature runs somewhat contrary to mine.” Phryne flipped the lid of the old biscuit tin closed and held it out to him. “I didn’t look, truly.”

His expression changed when he saw the battered tin. “Good lord, I haven’t seen that thing in years,” he murmured. He took it with hands that trembled slightly. “I carried this in my pack for four years. Every letter and photograph I received at the Front got stowed away in here. Every letter from my mother, from my sister... from Rosie...” He swallowed hard and then crossed the threshold of the room to sit down next to Phryne on the edge of the seldom-used guest bed. “Where on earth was it hiding?”

“In the bottom drawer of the bureau.” Phryne tucked her legs, still clad in his pajama trousers, beneath her, and leaned her chin on his shoulder. “I was really just looking for the pieces to go with the draughts board.” She changed her mind, and leaned her cheek on his shoulder instead. “It... must have been lovely, getting letters from home.”

“Your family didn’t write to you?”

“I fled to France to get _away_ from my family,” she reminded him. “To try and... lose some of my demons in the chaos of battlefield hospitals. My parents knew I was in France, but they had no idea where I was to be found, not until well after Armistice.”

Jack laid the biscuit tin carefully on his knee, and then put his arm around Phryne’s shoulders. “Thank you, for finding this for me.”

She snuggled close to him, as close as she could get. “Thank you for finding me.”


	78. Listen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I missed you.” Requested by timetravelbypen.
> 
> Actual drabble! *\o/*

“You flew halfway round the world after me. Why?”

“Because you told me to.”

“You never listen to me.”

“I _always_ listen to you.”

“Why, though?”

“Because I love you.”

“Jack.” _(her voice is soft in the dark)_ “I know that. It’s not an answer.”

“It isn’t?”

“Not enough of one.”

“No, it wouldn’t be, would it, for you... I came because I missed you.”

“You hardly had time.”

“Phryne.” _(his hands are soft, drawing her close)_ “I always miss you.”

“Then you’ll have to keep up.”


	79. Something Different

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You look good in pink!” Requested by balticprincess.

Jack pawed through her makeup drawers and finally held up a tube of lipstick. 

“Why not red?” Phryne asked, taking the tube and checking the label. 

“Because you always wear red, and you’re always leaving lipstick all over me whenever we make love. I want to see something different.”

Smirking the whole time, while trying to contain the anticipatory clenching in her midsection, Phryne carefully outlined Jack’s lips in his chosen colour. She rolled her lips together and Jack mimicked the movement, spreading the stain across thin, mobile lips that suddenly looked more lively and luscious than ever. 

Phryne tipped her head to one side, studying him. “I wouldn’t have thought it, but... pink is a good colour on you.”

“Thank you,” said Jack placidly, clearly refusing to give way to any embarrassment he might be feeling. He took the lipstick from Phryne, capped it, chucked it blindly in the direction of the dressing table, and reached for her. He pushed her back onto the bed and rose up over her, white teeth glinting between his wet pink lips, and his eyes dancing hungrily. “Now... let’s see how it looks on _you_...”


	80. Involved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m pregnant.” Requested by Anonymous. (Phryne/Mac/Jack)
> 
> This drabble turned into eight separate drabbles! I normally try to make the responses to these prompts as tight and controlled as possible, but this anonymous prompt needed quite a bit more set-up and consideration than usual. I hope my mystery prompter is satisfied! ♥

_“So between Beatrice and Charlie Street, our reputation should be salvaged. Otherwise I will have to go out and procreate with the nearest brilliant white male. Don't worry, Inspector. That won't happen in a hurry. Although you would be my first choice.”_

 

The detective and the coroner stared forlornly at the small outline below the white sheet, and adjourned to her office for a much-needed drink.

“Do you ever think about children? About having children.”

“Sometimes. I see so many terrible things, in my job, that I can be cynical about humanity, but I see good and beautiful things as well. And… sometimes… there’s a yearning for a child, to share that with.”

Mac swirled her whiskey in her glass. “In my job, too.”

“What about you?”

“I have… a curiosity, I suppose.” Though it was more than a curiosity. “About what sort of mother I’d make. As well as having a bizarre, archaic, and not very commendable desire to pass on the family blood line or some such nonsense.”

“So adoption’s off the table?”

“I’m not like Phryne. Who in Welfare would willingly give me a child?”

 

* * *

 

Phryne stroked Mac’s bare shoulder lovingly. Their skins gleamed with sweat after their exertions. “What are you thinking of?”

“The fact that you’re back now.” Mac’s eyes were faraway. “Jack and I became very close while you were gone.”

“How close?” Phryne asked, with a slow smile.

“I’m thinking… I’m thinking of having a child by him.”

Phryne blinked and sat up. “Mac, darling…” Her voice was soft, uncertain. “You want that?”

“I want that. I’ll have to give up one of my posts to have the time, it’ll be a drain on my savings and God only knows what it’ll do to my freedom… but I want that, Phryne.” She smiled wryly, nervously. “Will you help me?”

“However I can, you know that. Money, legal help, emotional support… anything.”

Mac swallowed. “…Ask Jack for me?”

 

* * *

 

“…This doesn’t surprise you in the slightest, does it.”

Jack’s smile was lopsided, hesitant. Shy, Phryne realized. “The subject of children came up a lot, while you were away. I had time to think. To consider.” He toyed with his glass. “Does she just want… well, how involved would I get to be? With the child.”

“I think Mac will need all the help she can get. I would say very involved.” She slid a hand up his sleeve, soothingly. “Will you do this for her, Jack?”

He held her eyes with his, and nodded. Overwhelmed, Phryne stretched up and kissed him. “Mac asked me to be there as well, if that will make you feel better.”

That surprised him. “I… well… it won’t make me feel worse,” he blurted out, stumbling over his words. “But it will be strange… I never thought I’d end up sleeping with Dr. MacMillan before I did with you.”

His shyness warmed Phryne through and through. Her hand on his sleeve was steady, solid, warm. “Shall we rectify that beforehand?”

He nodded again, silent and trusting, and followed upstairs where she led.

 

* * *

 

She’d been with men before, years ago, before realizing they did nothing for her. She’d never been with a man and a woman at the same time. The combination of desire for the one and indifference to the other was... confusing, to say the least. ...Even if she wasn’t quite as indifferent to Jack as she’d anticipated.

Why? Because she needed him, if she wanted to get pregnant? Or because he wasn’t touching her for his own pleasure?

Mac didn’t know, and was soon beyond the capacity for critical thinking. He knew how to touch her for _her_ pleasure, that was for damned sure, even if he was all angles where she longed for curves. And Phryne was there, holding her, touching her, eager to be held and touched in turn.

 

* * *

 

“I was concerned,” Mac said as she washed her hands after going over the particulars of a corpse with them, “that it would take more than one go, as it were, but it seems like once was enough.” She turned and saw their faces, and knew she would remember their expressions until the day she died: Phryne’s awash with delight, and Jack’s gone slack with disbelief.

She accepted Phryne’s bear hug, clinging to her tightly, burying her face in Phryne’s sweet-spicy-scented hair to muffle her tears of joy and fear. They’d done it. _Oh, hell, what’ve I done, how am I going to do this... I wanted this. I want this. Phryne and I, we get want we want._

“I shall call Mr. Butler at once and tell him to arrange a little celebratory dinner party, just for the three of us.” Phryne kissed Mac on the cheek, and then kissed Jack on the cheek, and then tripped into Mac’s office to commandeer her telephone.

Jack was still looking like he’d been hit in the head with a fence post. Mac remembered that he’d been married for a decade-and-a-half with no children, and smiled lopsidedly at him. “It seems inadequate, somehow, to say ‘thank you,’ but... Thank you.”

Something in his eyes made Mac want to burst into tears, a feeling she did not appreciate. “I’ll expect help changing the nappies,” she said sternly.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve applied for a six-month sabbatical from university and the hospital. Jack’s already lined up a doctor to take my place in the morgue. That should give me enough time, when I decide I need to leave town.”

Phryne drank whiskey; Mac drank weak tea (well, tea-flavoured milk). “Where will you go?”

Mac named a small town, some three hours’ from Melbourne, that Phryne had never heard of. “I’ve got an old university friend there. She’s a nurse. She and her partner will take care of me.”

“And afterward? You always said you never wanted to adopt because you were worried about Welfare.”

“And you said I was being too scrupulous. Not all of us have enough money to make government agencies look the other way.” Mac sipped her tea-milk and grimaced. “I’ll put it about that I’m going away to care for a sick cousin. When I come back with a baby – _if_ I come back with a baby,” she amended, the scientist in her forcing her to be realistic, “I’ll just say it was hers.”

The closed parlour doors opened a crack. “The Inspector, Miss Fisher,” murmured Mr. Butler. “He would like to see Dr. MacMillan.” A lower rumble from beyond, too indistinct to hear. “If he’s not intruding, that is.”

“Let him help somehow,” Phryne whispered, touching Mac’s hand. “Of course not, Mr. B!” She rose and kissed Jack on the cheek and breezed out, calling something about more tea and sandwiches.

Jack sat gingerly in the seat she’d vacated. He wanted so badly to be involved, Mac knew, but at the same time was so desperate not to intrude. She warmed to him all the more for that. “So. Let’s talk about names.”

 

* * *

 

Phryne tangled her fingers in Mac’s hair, as she lay with her head between Phryne’s breasts. “So you’ll be leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes. I can’t hide this for much longer, and soon it’s going to be impossible for me to be on my feet all day, let alone divert people’s attention from my widening waistline.”

Gently, Phryne caressed Mac’s breasts and stomach, feeling the changes. “I cared for my mother through so many pregnancies. I never saw her like this, of course.”

“I’d be concerned if you had…”

“I mean… this content. This healthy and vibrant. It almost makes me want…” Her breath caught sharply in her chest. “Mac? Was that…?”

Mac laced her fingers with Phryne’s and pressed them against her lower abdomen, so that both of them could feel the infinitesimal flutterings of the infant.

Phryne lifted up Mac’s head and kissed her with slow, thorough tenderness. “You should let Jack feel this,” she murmured, “before you go.”

“I did.” Mac slid her hands into Phryne’s hair. “I was with him last night.”

 

* * *

 

The telegram burned in Phryne’s pocket. “Are we nearly there?”

“I think so.”

The rainy weather had meant leaving the Hispano behind, so Jack was driving, too slowly for Phryne’s liking but still faster than his usual sedate legal motoring. Another ten minutes, and then, “This is it.”

They found the house, parked, and dodged through the raindrops. The woman who opened the door looked exhausted. “Yes?”

Phryne held out the telegram silently. The woman looked at it, and ushered them in with a silent, tired smile. “She’s been asking for you two, every five minutes since daybreak.”

The bedroom she led them to was quiet, save for a small, comfortable sound that tugged sweetly at the backs of their minds. Gingerly, Phryne and Jack inched inside, and one after the other they each kissed Mac softly and peered down at the new little face at her breast. Jack clutched at his hat brim like a lifeline.

“What have you named him?” Phryne asked, admiring the squashed creature solely because he was the product of the two people she loved most in the world.

“Ian,” said Mac. She looked tired and sounded distant, as though she was only marginally aware of her friends’ presence. “Ian Carlyle MacMillan. I’d planned to name a girl after my mother, but Carlyle is her maiden name. Ian was my father’s name.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Phryne, recalling him distantly from their shared childhood. She glanced sideways at Jack. “It’s the Scottish version of John, isn’t it?”

“Mmm.” The little mouth fell away from the nipple it had been so interested in a moment before. “Jack.” Mac jerked her head at him. He gulped and came forward, and his hands simply engulfed the tiny drowsy body of her son.

Phryne leaned her cheek on top of Mac’s hair, breathing in her scent.


	81. Demands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Whoopsie-daisies!” Requested by slimwhistler.

“Miss Fisher, give me the key!”

“What, this key? Don’t be ridiculous, Jack, this doesn’t unlock anything but an old steamer trunk.”

He glared daggers at her, and at the man in the cloth cap seemingly cringing behind her. “A steamer trunk which may contain important evidence, evidence to implicate _that_ man in a murder.”

“Detective-Inspector, you are referring to my client, who as yet has been charged with no crime. And may I add—”

“Damn it, Miss Fisher—!”

Her eyes narrowed. “And might I add, Inspector Robinson, that I do not take kindly to having demands made of me.” She turned her head just slightly to whisper to her client, _“Run.”_

He bolted like a rabbit, and at the same moment, Jack lunged for the key, just as Phryne dropped it down a sewer grate and stepped neatly out of the way, sending Jack sprawling on the pavement. “Collins, after him!” he snarled. 

Jack rolled over and saw Phryne Fisher gazing coolly down on him. “Whoopsie-daisies,” she shrugged.


	82. Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t think I would do that, do you?” (Bert and Aunt Prudence) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Prudence splashed water on her red eyes. It was too much, everyone gathered in the music room, the scallop pies, the song that Arthur had adored being sung by Phryne and Dr. Samuels and Cecil... even at the funeral, even after, she hadn’t been able to cry like this. 

She dried her face gently on a soft towel and emerged from the bathroom. Waiting in the hall, leaning against the wall with an unlit cigarette between his lips, was Albert. “You’d better not even be thinking of lighting that in my house,” said Prudence. 

“Nah, Mrs. S.,” Bert drawled. “Y’ don’t think I’d ever do that, now, do you?” 

That brought a smile to Prudence’s lips. “In a heartbeat,” she said, “if you thought you could get away with it.”

Bert grinned and offered her his arm to lead her back to the music room.


	83. Money

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re being unreasonable.” (Bert and Dottie) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

“It’s a bloody impertinence, that’s what it is!”

Dottie Collins speared Bert with a look that told him exactly what she thought of him swearing in Miss Fisher’s kitchen, even if Miss Fisher _was_ somewhere over the Holy Land at that moment and not present to be offended. “It’s hardly that. Cec and Alice are just trying to be good friends.”

“Tryin’ to separate me from my hard-earned cash. If they need t’ take in boarders, they shouldn’t’ve married in the first place.” He gulped down his tea with a bitter expression. 

“They’re not even charging you rent,” Dot pointed out mildly.

“An’ why not? My money not good enough for ‘em?”

Dot banged the tea things down on the kitchen table; it was such an uncharacteristic thing for her to do that even unflappable Bert jumped. “Albert Johnson, you are being the most... unreasonable, hard-headed lump God ever put on this earth. Cec and Alice want you to live with them because they _like_ you, and they’re asking for your money because you’re their _friend_. You’ve been complaining non-stop about your new landlady overcharging her boarders, and they want to help you. Why is that so hard to accept?” 

Bert gave her a mulish look and stared down at his mug. Then he got up, grabbed his hat and headed for the door. 

“Where are you going?”

“...Goin’ to pack up my kit, ain’t I.”


	84. Foggy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Please continue, you have such a lovely voice.” (Mac/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Tired as he was at the end of a long day of paperwork, tracking down murderers, and dealing with Miss Fisher, Jack always looked forward to an hour or two with Dr. MacMillan. She’d begun giving him lessons in toxicology, at his own request, to help him through a difficult poisoning case, and he’d found the subject so fascinating that she continued teaching him. 

He also found the doctor quite fascinating. At first glance, she and Miss Fisher seemed like an odd pair, the one so feminine and the other so… something Jack couldn’t quite put his finger on. But on cases they slotted together comfortably, rather as Miss Fisher and himself were beginning to. It was an interesting variation, one that the detective in Jack rather enjoyed contemplating. 

The scholar in Jack, though, was drawn to Mac’s presence, as one seeker of knowledge to another, and there were nights when they worked over experiments in chemistry into the small hours of the morning where he found himself drawn away from the chemical reactions and drawn towards her voice, low and precise, with hints of a soft Scottish accent that became more pronounced as she grew tired, gently sardonic, a little foggy from cigarette smoke, relating the wondrous secrets of the periodic table.


	85. Hard to Get

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I had no idea, what else did I miss?” Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Phryne dropped gratefully and gracelessly into a chair and accepted a drink from her omnipresent butler. “Well, that was fun!” she proclaimed brightly, beaming at her escort and toeing her dancing shoes off her aching feet. 

Smiling, Jack took the second drink from Mr. Butler’s tray and assumed his customary place against the mantle. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

“And the Police Association holds that sort of dance every month?”

“Every few months. Nothing compared to the annual ball, of course, but it provides a little relief from the daily grind.” Jack loosened his black bow tie and let the ends hang down, and unbuttoned his collar. He saw Phryne’s gaze immediately rivet on the newly-exposed skin of his throat. “It’s been a while since I was in a mood to go, but I always encourage my men to try and attend, particularly the young officers. They’re open to the public as well, so it’s a good place for them to meet people.”

“Like young ladies?” Phryne suggested, mischief dancing in her green eyes.

“That is one section of the public,” Jack agreed smoothly. 

“Your young Constable Archer won’t remain a bachelor for too much longer, if I’m any judge of things. He and his dance partner Miss Dane were thick as thieves in their corner.”

Jack leveled a look at her. “Don’t you dare begin playing matchmaker with the rest of my constabulary. Archer’d only just met the young lady, and they were only talking.”

“I’m completely innocent of such accusations, Detective-Inspector, I’m only relating the evidence of my senses. Didn’t you notice?”

“I saw them _talking_.”

“Yes, but they way they were talking…” Phryne sipped her drink slowly and swallowed, letting her tongue flicker across her lips to lick away any lingering drops, and smirking at the way Jack’s Adam’s apple bobbed hard at the sight. “She’s out to hook him. A woman knows.”

“Indeed? Care to enlighten me?”

“It’s simple enough. Miss Dane was ducking her head as she spoke, watching him through her lashes, probably pitching her voice very low…” Phryne’s voice dipped correspondingly into a husky register. “…so that Constable Archer had to lean in very close to hear her under the music…” She waved one slim hand. “I saw his face. He was clearly mesmerized by her.”

“I had no idea I was neglecting so much vital information. So that’s one of the tricks women play, is it? To get men to chase after them?”

“Some women do. I’ve never needed to convince men to chase after me.”

A slow smile formed in the corners of Jack’s lips. “No,” he agreed. “‘Hard to get’ is not one of your games.”

“I shall take that in a spirit of admiration, Inspector,” said Phryne, rising from her chair in one smooth motion and joining him before the fireplace.

“As it was intended, Miss Fisher.”

“Good.” She traced the line of his jaw with one elegant fingertip, from the base of his ear down the angle of his throat, and took possession of his unbuttoned collar. “Because otherwise, I might have been vastly offended by such an… impertinent remark.”

“You know I’m loathe to offend you, my dear,” Jack murmured, his voice roughening into a soft growl. 

Phryne’s smile was delighted and hungry. She pressed a kiss to his throat and proceeded to expose more of him.


	86. No Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t you dare move.” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by ladygrayluvs.
> 
> This was requested, remember, so no shaming. ;)

"Don't move," she whispers across Bert's ear, barely daring to breathe. His lips are warm and soft beneath her palm, his body hard beneath hers, as they lie flat beneath the van in the big garage and pray that the boss of the place doesn't have dogs. In the dim light, his blue eyes are wide and alert. 

Phryne feels him twitch against her through his clothes, feels his heart racing in time with hers. He can't help it, she knows; he lives for moments like this as much as she does. The quiet life sits badly with both of them. 

They listen, silent and immobile as the cement floor beneath them, until the boss is satisfied that his building is empty, and leaves. 

Phryne lets out a gasp, gulps in a mouthful of oil-scented air, and moves her hand off Bert's mouth to kiss him, hard. There's a split second of surprise before he kisses her back. Debating within himself, Phryne thinks, trying to get out from under the van without letting him go. "I'm not a toff," she reminds him, dragging him after her. "I'm just a girl from Collingwood."

"Still too good for me." Bert's voice is rasping and strained, but his lips are still soft. "Cab." 

The backseat isn't wide enough to lie down in, so she takes him sitting up, straddling his lap and spearing herself on his cock. His chest is warm and solid against her breasts and his callused hands feel good around her hips. He spends himself before she finishes, letting out a strangled wordless noise that's more confusion than completion. "Been with plenty'a girls whose names I didn't know," he said, after she crested and then slumped against him, "never been with one I didn't know what t' call." 

Phryne pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "No names needed," she assured him.


	87. Knowing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I knew it, I just knew it!” Requested by rithebard.

Jack stared numbly at the files on his desk. He spent about ten minutes each morning doing just that, staring at his paperwork and not quite seeing it. It was the adjustment of expectations he had to do now, constantly, now that he couldn’t expect Phryne Fisher to come striding into his office anytime soon… or, logic dictated, ever again… 

The newspapers had been splashed with headlines about her plane’s disappearance for a week or two, and then other stories had taken her place, and the mystery of the Honourable Phryne Fisher and her father had been moved further and further back in the papers. It didn’t seem fair. She was too vibrant and alive to just vanish into the ether, let alone allow herself to be relegated to a small paragraph in the corner of a Melbourne newspaper. It _wasn’t_ fair. And Jack, for one, was still not disposed to believe it. 

She would be back, he ended his morning reverie by saying to himself, as he always did. She would be back, and he was damned if she was going to find him moping over her when she did finally stride in. Jack let out a huff and reached for a file. 

He had barely begun to read it before he was interrupted by a knock on his door. “Sir?”

Jack didn’t look up. “What is it, Collins?”

“S-sir,” his senior constable said, in a tone of voice that sent chills down Jack’s spine, “there’s s-someone here to see you.”

_They’ve found her body,_ Jack’s mind whispered traitorously. “Who is it?”

“…Hello, Jack.”

All the warmth drained from his body, and then came back in a rush that lifted him to his feet, carried him across the office and into her arms. “I knew you weren’t gone,” he whispered hoarsely, his hands and lips and face buried in her hair. “I just knew it. I _felt_ it. I knew you’d come back to me.”

Phryne curled her hands around the back of his neck and held him there. “Thank god for that,” she breathed. “I think we might’ve been hiked right out of the ocean on the strength of your knowing it.”


	88. Patience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Put that down.” Requested by izzyandlouie.

Phryne’s eyes narrowed and glittered with dangerous amusement. “I suggest you remove your hand from my wrist, Jack, unless you’d like me to do something unpleasant to your hand.”

“Threatening a police officer is an arrestable offense, Miss Fisher,” he reminded her. “As is failing to obey a police officer’s direct orders, which you are currently in the process of doing.”

“And will continue to do.”

“You heard me, Phryne,” Jack said implacably. “Put it down. Now.”

“But... I’m hungry. And Dot’s not here yet.”

Jack rolled his eyes and shook his sandwich out of her hand. “Be patient, Miss Fisher.”

“Patience is not my middle name.”

“Hmm, interesting, that’s not what your juvenile arrest record says...” Jack grinned widely at Phryne’s horrified expression and took a bite of his sandwich. It really was quite good.


	89. Natural

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve got to be joking.” (Bert) Requested by izzyandlouie.

Bert held his hands up and backed away in panic. “You’re off yer nut, Cec! I ain’t touchin’ it!”

Cec’s gentle smile faded into something very like hurt. “Aww, c’mon, Bert. Jus’ for a minute.”

“Nope.” Bert clamped his lips together firmly and shook his head. 

“But he’s your godson.” Cec cradled his baby boy tenderly. “Or, well, he will be, once we get ‘im to the church.” He smiled beatifically at Bert and then at his child, rocking him in his arms. “Talked it over with Alice. We’re gonna name him Peter, after my dad. Figured we’d use Albert for his middle name... that is, if you’re up for the job.”

A muscle in Bert’s jaw jumped. “...Last time I held a baby, Cec, I dropped it.”

“...Yeah, but weren’t you nine? C’mon, mate, no better time t’ learn.” He carefully settled little Peter Albert Yates into Bert’s arms, and adjusted his hands. “See?” He laughed a bit at his best friend’s awestruck look. “You’re a natural.”


	90. Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How could you?” Requested by izzyandlouie.

Eyebrows drawn intently together, Phryne trailed her fingernails slowly over Jack’s naked chest, using just enough pressure to raise shallow welts on his skin. “Are you going to tell me what it cost you to follow me to England?” she asked finally. 

“Do you regret that I came?”

“Not for a moment. ...But I know you left an awful lot behind, Jack. On very short notice. For me.”

Jack dragged a fingertip down Phryne’s bare arm, watching her skin change color momentarily beneath his touch. “I left everything behind. My house... my job... I didn’t know if I was going to survive the trip, let alone go back.”

“Jack... how could you do such a thing?”

His lips twitched slightly... but his eyes were dark and solemn. “I had my orders, Miss Fisher.”


	91. Olympic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Just stay exactly where you are.” Requested by izzyandlouie.

“Did you find it yet?”

Jack bumped his head on the bottom of the bed. “Not yet. Just stay where you are, Phryne.”

“Oh... not a problem.” 

He looked about under the bed with his torch for another few seconds and then stood up, shaking his head. “I don’t see it. Either it left the same way it came in, or else it’s hiding amongst the bedclothes. 

Phryne’s eyes widened. Abruptly, she was in Jack’s arms. 

He blinked at her in bemusement. “I don’t think an Olympic athlete could replicate a standing jump like that.” Her arms and legs tightened around him, and would not be moved. 

Jack suppressed a smile. He carried her downstairs and left her in Dot’s care, while he and Mr. Butler sallied forth to do battle with the spider in Phryne Fisher’s boudoir.


	92. Frisson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Whatever you do, do not look backwards.” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

The parlour doors were safely locked. Sometimes Phryne kept them unlocked, because she retained an adolescent enjoyment of the frisson of uncertainty that ran up her spine whenever she made love in a place where discovery was a possibility. Jack, though, preferred discretion. 

Phryne, sitting on his lap with her back to his chest, found she didn’t entirely mind. 

“You’re not to turn around,” he warned her with a growl, insinuating his hands up her skirt and down her knickers. “Eyes front, Phryne. Do you understand?”

His fingers connected with the damp heat pooling between her thighs, and she gasped aloud. 

Jack nipped gently at the side of her neck, turning the gasp into a groan. “Do you understand?”

“Yes!” she mewled. She thrust into his touch and, unseen by him, smiled in delighted abandon. 

It thrilled her to give way to Jack’s commands, because she knew he would not hesitate, tomorrow, or even later tonight, to give way to hers.


	93. Off-Colour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Then, I asked him, ‘what was that parrot doing on your shoulder?’” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Guy poked his head into the lounge where Phryne was luxuriating over a newspaper. There was a particularly salacious society gossip paragraph about herself and Jack, and she wanted to enjoy it properly before setting her solicitor loose on the writer. “Phrynekins, have you seen Mother?”

She raised an eyebrow at her cousin. “I thought she was in the kitchen, going over preparations for the fete with Mr. Butler and Isabella.”

“She was, but then she took offense to something Isabella said and stormed off.”

Phryne fought an urge to roll her eyes. “Now what on _earth_ could Isabella have said to make Aunt Prudence do that?”

Guy, who had only recently reconciled with his mother, had the grace to look the tiniest bit sheepish. “Oh, lord, could’ve been anything. I’m beginning to think I should’ve left the wife and kid at home whilst I made peace with the mater.”

He looked truly distressed, which was a rarity for Guy. Impressed by his dismay, Phryne tucked the newspaper under her arm and offered to track Prudence down. 

She wasn’t anywhere to be found in the conservatory, which was her usual refuge in times of trouble. And obviously she wouldn’t be in the kitchen still... Phryne thought for a moment, then made her way out of the conservatory and towards the back of the house, where the stables and automobile garages were kept. As she passed the tool shed, she heard the unmistakable voice of Albert Johnson, telling one of his more off-colour pub stories. 

_Oh, surely Aunt P can’t be with him,_ Phryne said to herself. But he might know where she was, so she turned the corner and then stopped dead. 

Sitting on the running board of a spotless Bentley saloon were Bert and Aunt Prudence, passing a hand-rolled cigarette back and forth. Bert grinned broadly. “An’ then I asked him, ‘what’s that bloody parrot doin’ on your shoulder?’”

Prudence whooped with laughter and almost fell off the running board. She looked more relaxed than Phryne could remember ever seeing her. 

Phryne giggled behind her hand and slipped back round the corner of the shed. Guy would just have to wait.


	94. Advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Thud!” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

There was sunlight trying to peep in around the heavy curtains, Phryne noted, after a massive effort to raise one eyelid disclosed this fact to her bleary senses. Sunlight meant morning. Morning was supposed to mean sleep, and then tea and toast brought in with Dot’s gentle, “Good morning, miss.”

It was _not_ supposed to mean Jack Robinson, fully dressed, standing beside her bed and grinning down at her with devilish enjoyment. “You’re late,” he said, in a disgustingly hearty voice.

“No’m not,” she managed to croak out. “You’re early.” She dragged her blanket up over her head.

Jack responded by yanking the blanket off the bed entirely. Phryne yelped and instinctively tried to cover her nakedness (and felt silly about it later), and only succeeded in landing on the floor with a _thud!_ “It’s after eight in the morning, Miss Fisher, and you promised me you’d be at the station to sit the interrogations with me.”

Oh, damn, she had promised that. At the pub last night. And then she had wanted Jack to come home with her, and he had demurred and kissed her and told her to have fun and then gone home by himself, so she’d followed his advice and picked up the nice young man who’d been eyeing her all evening… No wonder she was so tired. “Is that why you’re here?” she groaned, managing to open both eyes in order to glare at him. “To gloat?”

“Of course not. I promised you when we decided to pursue a relationship that I wouldn’t try to hold you too tightly.” His expression softened for a moment. “I know monogamy isn’t in your nature,” he murmured, reaching down to smooth her tousled hair. “I’m not upset you brought someone home last night, Phryne.” He grasped her hand and helped her to stand up. 

Sleepy as she was, Phryne couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes skimmed admiringly over her bared body. Then his evil grin was back. “But I bet you’re sorry now that you didn’t send him on his way sooner.” 

He handed her the blanket. “You’ve got ten minutes, Miss Fisher, otherwise I’m doing the interrogations without you.”

“You’re—but this is _my_ case, Jack!”

He shrugged and glanced at his wrist watch. “Ten minutes. I’ll be in the car.”


	95. Punctual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Where can one get a drink around here?” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

_Don’t let it be too late,_ Jack found himself praying, as they kicked in the door. The ransom demand that had been received at Wardlow had been excruciatingly specific: so much as a flicker of police, and Phryne Fisher would be dead. 

So there had been no flickering. Only Jack, with a few acquaintances from his war days, and one or two of his trusted and capable officers to give this the gloss of an official police action, descending upon the house of one of Melbourne’s most notorious and untouchable drug barons. 

He moved through the hail of gunfire with quick, efficient movements, holding back the jerking terror that the situation was trying to bring back to him, looking for Phryne. He couldn’t find her, he couldn’t find her... the house backed onto the river, oh Christ no... 

She was in the cellar, chained to an iron bed, clothes filthy, face bruised, bottom lip split, but alive and looking vastly annoyed. Her eyes flinched in the light of his torch and then drank him in with adoring satisfaction. “What time is it?”

Jack, startled, automatically looked at his watch. “Uh, it’s a little after eight in the evening.”

Phryne managed a small grin. “Ah, you’re right on time for our cocktail date. Darling Jack, always so punctual. Though I’m sadly not dressed for the occasion, I’m sure my host has something decent to drink lying around upstairs.”

“The only thing lying around upstairs right now is actually your host, and a good number of his men.” Jack knelt beside the bare iron bedstead and touched her face gently. “Let’s get you out of here and into something more comfortable, hmm?”


	96. Lost Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That wasn’t his mother.” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Phryne curled up on the bed beside her husband. It was still very strange to think of Jack that way; ‘partner’ came more naturally to her mind. But they had married in November, in order to give an additional air of legitimacy to the baby boy they had been saddled with at the end of the Wyndham murder case. 

Now it was January – January fifteenth, in fact, Jack’s thirty-seventh birthday – and little Anthony John Fisher-Robinson was two months old and impossible to distinguish from his adoptive parents. “Do you know,” she said, smiling at the picture Jack made, lying on the bed with the baby balanced on his chest, “Aunt Prudence still doesn’t believe he’s adopted.”

Jack snorted softly. “Well, if she doesn’t believe it now, she’s not likely to change her mind in the future, no matter how many times we say you’re not actually his mother.” He ran a gentle hand over Anthony’s downy head. “With his blue eyes and black hair, he’s liable to end up looking _more_ like us, than less, as he gets older.”

“She just thinks we’re making up for lost time. D’you know what she said to me before she left? ‘Before you know it, Phryne dear, Anthony will have a little brother or sister.’” Phryne groaned and buried her face in Jack’s neck. “Save me from my well-meaning relations.”


	97. Replacement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Yes. Always yes.” For afterdinnerminx.

Phryne stood on the balcony of her parents’ new townhouse (bought by Phryne and deeded in her mother’s name), sipping champagne and gazing wistfully out over London at night, but not seeing it. “Do you really have to go?” she asked at last. 

The gentleman beside her sighed and nodded. “I’ve stayed away too long, I’m afraid,” Jack murmured. “And the reports I’ve gotten regarding my replacement are not good, to say the least. I’ve still got a job to do, Phryne. I can’t give that up.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her gently. “Not even for you.”

She smiled up at him. The lights of London made her jewels and her eyes glitter. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Jack Robinson.”

A gleam of his usual sly humour touched his lips. “Come after me?”

Phryne let out a low, throaty laugh and twined her arms around his neck. “Always, Jack. You’re not getting away from me _that_ easily.”


	98. Shred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This was a really bad idea.” Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Picks up from [A Fine Proud Thing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4830731).

“Is Sam all right?” Jack asked, looking up from his book as Phryne entered his private bedroom and gently shut the door.

“Mac says he should be fine.” She curled up in his desk chair, looking rather her age. “Just over-exertion. I’m afraid she gave me rather a scolding,” Phryne added, wrinkling her nose.

Jack bit back a grin. “Thank God she doesn’t know the whole story.”

“Oh, hell, Jack, she wouldn’t care. Although she’d probably be rather put out that I got to bed Lili and she didn’t.”

“Then it’s fortunate you didn’t mention that Lili and I weren’t downstairs playing draughts while you and Sam were... how did he put it? ‘Shredding headboards’?”

“One doesn’t _shred_ a brass headboard.” Phryne tossed her short hair. “One snaps it.”

“Of course.” Jack carefully noted his page and set his book aside. “You didn’t _actually_ tell Dr. MacMillan anything, did you?”

Phryne looked at him in dismay. “Jack! Of course I didn’t! Even if I do think Mac would understand, I made you a promise. And besides, her knowing would put you in a terribly delicate situation at the station—” She broke off abruptly at the look on Jack’s face. “Sorry.”

He rolled his broad shoulders in an uncomfortable shrug and rubbed his forehead irritably with one hand and drummed his knee with the fingers of the other. “This… this was a terrible idea, Phryne. I should never have let myself… succumb.”

He was definitely not blushing, that much was certain. But there was a deep emotion lurking just beneath the surface that Phryne knew she had to tread lightly with. Last night, this morning... it had all been a great deal for a man like Jack to take in, all at once, and then Sam having one of his heart upsets at breakfast had not done any of them any favors. “Jack... darling, who we love, who we are attracted to… It’s not always within our control.”

Jack smiled lopsidedly. “Oh, as I well know.” 

Phryne reached for his hand and gripped it tightly.


	99. Authentic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Let me entertain you.” Requested by whiskeyandjack. (Phryne/Mac)

_Stay,_ Phryne’s eyes said to Mac as she offered her hand to the dashing Spaniard. 

So Mac stayed. She made herself comfortable on the piano bench and smiled into her whiskey.

“Have you ever fan danced before, Miss Fisher?” Carlos asked in his gentle way. 

“No, but I've seen it done. How hard can it be?” Phryne’s face was calm but her voice was tinged with excitement. Mac imagined the adrenaline flowing through her veins, building as she anticipated the sensual dance and the danger she was throwing herself into. “Besides, you have three hours to turn me into a fully fledged showgirl, perhaps with a Spanish accent?”

She trailed a tempted finger down Carlos’s shirtfront and toyed with the strings of his bolo tie. “Or maybe we could make it two and have an hour to recover?”

Mac groaned silently to herself. Phryne did have a thing about ties… She glanced down at her usual cravat and wondered how she would look in a necktie. “I’m not staying _that_ long,” she groused.

Carlos began to coach Phryne through the intricate movements of the fan dance, the sweeping arms, the tempting legs, the promise of the treasure hidden behind the fans that Dottie Williams was so innocently creating, and Mac’s imagination promptly divested Phryne of her clothing for a more… authentic entertainment. 

_Mmm… I might have to sneak myself into the Imperial Club for this…_


	100. Walrus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I couldn’t help wondering...” Requested by whiskeyandjack and medeaofcolchis.
> 
> For Whiskey, who wanted to know what Phryne and Mac are like when they’re stoned, and for Medea, who wanted to know about the _first time_ Phryne and Mac got stoned together. 
> 
> Disclosure: I have never used marijuana myself, but I've been around people who are, so this is, um, definitely based on true events. ;)
> 
> And holy carp 100 drabbles! Thank you all so much! ♥♥♥

Mr. Butler answered the door with the slightest hint of a harried expression on his professionally bland face, but when he saw who the caller was, he allowed himself to relax slightly. “Oh, Inspector Robinson! I’m afraid Miss Fisher is somewhat indisposed, at the present moment.” He stepped back to allow Jack inside the house. “She seems to have overindulged,” he added, lowering his voice. 

Jack raised very surprised eyebrows at that. He’d seen Phryne a bit tipsy once or twice before, but for all her love of stimulating cocktails and excellent whiskey, she seemed unwilling to let herself get truly drunk. “Is she upstairs?”

“No, sir, she’s in the parlour. Dr. MacMillan is with her, but...”

As if on cue, the French doors opened to reveal the good doctor, in her shirtsleeves, her wryly good-natured face looking both amused and annoyed. “Oh, it’s you. Good evening, Inspector Robinson.” She crooked a commanding forefinger at him. “Best come in.”

There was something about Mac that reminded Jack uneasily of his stern Scottish grandmother, so he hastened to obey. 

Inside he found Phryne curled up in a chair, her knees drawn tightly to her chest and her hands folded around a tumbler of water, which she was studying intently. She looked up at him with slightly red eyes. “Jack!” she exclaimed delightedly.

“Miss Fisher.”

“When did you get here?”

“Just now.” He gestured to her water glass. “You feeling all right?”

“My hands are melting.” She looked at him beseechingly. “I need help... cup.”

Jack’s eyebrows climbed up his high forehead and nearly into his hairline.

“Guy Stanley sent some of his ‘special’ fudge,” Mac explained. “It’s a bit stronger than usual.” And she giggled. 

“And you had some yourself, I see.” Biting back a highly inappropriate grin, Jack knelt and helped Phryne lift the water to her lips.

“Thank you, Jack,” she said sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Don’t mention it.” He glanced at Mac. “And what’s your excuse, Doctor? A scientist’s curiosity?”

She rolled her brown eyes at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Inspector. I’m no stranger to cannabis, no more than Phryne is.” She chuckled again and dropped down onto the chaise. “The first time we ever tried the stuff was in Paris after the war, with some bohemian friends of ours. Phryne thought she was falling every which way out of her chair, and that all the bearded men were walruses. There were a lot of walruses in that cafe...” Mac broke off and gazed intently up at Jack. “Your eyes are ridiculously blue, did you know that?”

“I was aware of that, yes.”

“Oh good.” She giggled again and held out the tin. “Care for a bite?”

“No, thank you.” Jack frowned sternly. “Officially, I should arrest you both for possession and consumption of a questionable substance. And I would, if you were in public.”

“But we’re _not_ in _public_ ,” Phryne pointed out, sounding very pleased with herself. “And you’re not here _officially_.”

“No, I’m not,” Jack agreed. 

“So you'll have some?”

“No.” He went over to the sideboard, poured himself a drink, and then settled himself into the other chair with a little grin. “I’m going to sit here and watch the two of you act like lunatics, and gather blackmail material.”


	101. Behave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “In the back of the car?!” Requested by whiskeyandjack. (Phryne/Mac)

Jack shut the car door firmly in Phryne’s face. “Both of you stay here,” he ordered sternly, with an apology in his eyes, “and _behave_.”

Phryne glared at him as he walked off towards the crime scene with the new deputy commissioner. “I never would have believed it of him!”

Beside her, Mac let out the particular snort she kept for troublesome men. “He’s got his job to think of,” she pointed out fairly, and pulled a newspaper from inside her jacket, “and when the deputy commissioner tells you to ‘keep the sows in the pen’—”

“He did _not_ say that.”

“He did, before we left the station.” Mac’s newspaper rustled with indignation. “The inspector didn’t look at all happy, but what was he supposed to do, Phryne?”

“And what are we supposed to do? Just sit here and twiddle our thumbs while that bureaucrat tramples all over my and Jack’s crime scene?”

“You’re really rather adorable when you share things with Jack.” A pair of brown eyes grinned at Phryne over the top of the paper. “You go off and do whatever you want. I’m going to sit here like a good girl and read the latest news from the science world. I’m on salary; they pay me whether or not I get to look at the body. But if you want to inveigle yourself into ‘your and Jack’s crime scene’ and get yourself thrown in the cells for contempt, just because some stuffed shirt decided you’re not worth his time...” Mac trailed off. “Oh no, I know that wicked green gleam in your eye. What are you planning?”

“Nothing involving leaving the car, Mac, darling.” Phryne’s gloved hand slid temptingly up Mac’s thigh. 

Mac’s lips curled into a grin. “What, right here? In the back seat of Jack’s car?”

“Mac. I would never do such a thing to Jack’s car. Well, not with his permission.” Phryne plucked the newspaper from Mac’s hands and kissed her passionately. “But this isn’t Jack’s car—it’s the deputy commissioner’s.”

“Ah. Well, that’s all right, then.”


	102. Drivel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re talking out of the top of your hat!” Requested by rithebard.
> 
> Definition: to pontificate on a subject one knows nothing about.

“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.”

“Oh, I’ve listened. I just haven’t believed any of it.”

“Jack Robinson. Are you accusing me of lying?”

“Certainly not. I am accusing you of vastly overstating your knowledge of certain subject matters.”

“I take offense to that, Inspector. I may not be as widely-read as you—”

“I doubt that.”

“—but I know I’ve traveled a great deal more than you, and one does pick up a surprising amount of useful knowledge between England and Australia.”

“I’ve no doubt of that.”

“Then why are you laughing at me?”

“Because I know for a fact that nothing you’ve said is true, that you have very little interest in the fields of study you’ve been talking about, and that an intelligent women such as yourself would never believe half of the drivel you’ve been spouting.”

“...Oh, fine. Guilty as charged, Your Honour. But I made you laugh.”

“Was that all you were trying to do?”

“For the moment, darling. For the moment.”


	103. Modern

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You jump, I jump, Jack.” (Jack and Mac) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Also for medeaofcolchis, who asked for "how Aunt P finds out about Ian’s actual relation to Mac and Jack." Calls back to [Chapter 80: Involved](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11367721).

“Doctor,” said Aunt Prudence, “you know I’m not one to gossip—”

“Oh, perish the thought, Mrs. Stanley.”

Phryne glanced at her friend over her tea and laughed with her eyes. 

“But we have known each other for a good many years, and as your friend, I must tell you, some of the hospital board members are looking rather askance at the story of how you came by little Ian.”

All the undercurrents of humour in the parlour came to a sudden crashing halt. “Is that so,” said Mac, rather neutrally. She shot a surreptitious glance at Jack, who was in his usual spot by the fireplace. His casual posture had gone abruptly tense. “They don’t believe that I adopted him from my late cousin.”

“In point of fact,” Prudence said, rather delicately, “no. For one thing, Welfare has no record of him.”

“There’s no reason why they should,” Phryne pointed out, “it was a private adoption! And Mac’s name in on the birth certificate.”

“It is. There have also been one or two comments about Dr. MacMillan’s... somewhat fuller appearance, of late.”

Mac’s upper lip curled in disgust. “Of course there’ve been,” she muttered. 

“Now before I go any further,” Aunt Prudence continued, drawing her short self up to her very most impressive, “I must tell you that I have stood up for you before the Board, and that I will continue to do so. In the area of physicians, you are one of the best in your field. And in the area of parenting... well, I see absolutely no reason to complain.” She looked down at the little boy cradled happily in her experienced arms, and her wrinkled face broke into a delighted smile. “And neither do you, do you, little man? No, of course you don’t. You’ve charmed even my child-wary niece, and that is no easy feat.”

Mac glanced at Jack with a question in her eyes. He gave her brief nod of silent assent. “If you’re asking whether or not Ian is my natural son, Mrs. Stanley, the answer is ‘yes.’” To everyone’s great relief, Aunt Prudence didn’t look the least bit surprised or scandalized. “As to who my baby's father is—”

“I was not going to inquire,” Prudence began.

“I am,” said Jack. “That is, I’m Ian’s father.”

Once again, the conversation skidded to a halt. “ _You_ , Inspector Robinson?” Prudence looked at him in utter shock, then at Phryne. “But—I was under the impression that… well, you and my niece—”

“We are, Aunt P.” Phryne rose from her chair and went to Jack’s side. She looped her arm through his and kissed his cheek briefly. “And you’re quite right: I do dote on Ian. I adore him because he’s the child of my two dearest friends. I wouldn’t like him nearly as much if he were mine.”

“I wanted a child,” said Mac bluntly. “I trusted Jack enough to ask him to… well, help.”

“I’ve always known Phryne had no interest in children of her own,” Jack continued, looking not at any of the women in the room, but at the baby who was happily cooing, in complete ignorance of what a conundrum his existence was. “But Mac is a dear friend to us both. I was happy to help.”

“So you see, Aunt Prudence?” Phryne shrugged and smiled with bright defiance. “We all got what we wanted: Jack and Mac have their adorable boy, and I get to play godmother and give Ian back to his mum at the end of the evening. It’s the perfect situation for us.”

Poor Prudence looked so stunned. “Oh dear lord, this is entirely too modern for an old woman like me.” She blinked several times and shook her head, then looked down as Ian’s infinitesimal fingers played with the lace collar of her dress. “But it doesn’t seem to bother you one little bit, does it, my fine fellow? No, it doesn’t—no it doesn’t!”

Baby Ian giggled happily.


	104. Foolscap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What arrest?” Requested by afterdinnerminx.
> 
> A little follow-up to [Beyond the Sea](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4911889/chapters/11268301).

Constable Collins traded an alarmed glance with his sweetheart, Dot. Detective Inspector Robinson was practically boiling, he was glaring at Miss Fisher so hard. In fact, Hugh couldn’t remember _ever_ seeing the inspector so angry. “This is a police crime scene,” Inspector Robinson informed the lady detective through clenched teeth. “And a homicide of a particularly delicate nature, which I do not need you barnstorming all over!”

Miss Fisher seethed visibly, but before she could protest, the inspector had pulled an official-looking document from his inside coat pocket. “This is an arrest warrant with your name on it,” he told Miss Fisher bluntly. “You take one step over this threshold, and you’ll be inside a cell so fast your head will spin. Do I make myself clear?”

“Impeccably,” Phryne snapped. She turned on her heel and strode back to her car. “Let’s go, Dot.”

Dot shot a worried look at Hugh and hurried to follow her employer. Hugh turned to Inspector Robinson and started to open his mouth.

Jack held up his hand. “Not. One. Word. Collins. Understood?”

Hugh gulped and nodded rapidly.

* * *

Phryne dropped Dot back at Wardlow. “I’m going out of town,” she told her companion shortly.

“Yes, miss. Shall I pack you anything?”

“No. I’m going to the cottage. I should be back on Sunday evening. Hopefully without having murdered anyone in the interim.”

“Yes, miss.” Dot stood on the curb, her notebook in her gloved hands, and watched Miss Phryne speed off. She chewed her lip thoughtfully and hoped the weekend by the sea would do Miss Phryne some good.

* * *

The two-hour drive did wonders for Phryne’s mood, as did the deep hot bath she drew for herself as soon as she was safely ensconced in her cozy little seaside retreat. It was a thoroughly new cottage, rustic enough in décor but as up-to-date and convenient as a modern woman could hope for, particularly a woman who wanted, while she was there, to bother as little as possible with both household cares  _and_ with servants. The kitchen and bathroom were crammed with labour-saving devices, the lights and appliances were all electric, and the smart little engine for the electricity had its own secure shed. Quite all that Phryne could ask for.

She was so comfortable, in fact, that she barely raised her head above the line of the water when she heard the front door open.

“Phryne?”

“In the bathroom, darling.”

The sound of a coat and hat being discarded, and then heavy footsteps in the passageway, heralded the wry smile and tender eyes of Jack Robinson. “Enjoying yourself?” he asked, as he leaned in the doorway.

“Entirely,” Phryne replied, smiling and stretching luxuriously, which displayed rather all of her charms to Jack’s approving view. “How’s the case shaping up?”

“Oh, it’s going to be a nasty one. I’m definitely going to need your help.”

“As always.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Phryne, I don’t always _need_ your help.”

“No, but you always want it.”

“There are many things I always want from you,” he said.

Phryne smouldered quietly at him. “That was quite a performance you gave at the scene of the crime, this afternoon. I thought poor Hugh was going to burst into tears. Do you think Sanderson believed it?”

“He bought me lunch on the strength of it, so I’d have to say yes.” Jack came the rest of the way into the bathroom, discarding his jacket and waistcoat and loosening his tie, and knelt beside the bathtub in his shirt and braces. “Pity I’ll have to spoil his good mood by bringing you onto the case in a few days.”

They shared a chuckle at Deputy Commissioner Sanderson’s expense. Then Phryne raised a dripping hand to Jack’s open collar. “Do you _really_ carry around an official arrest warrant for me?”

“I probably should,” Jack said dryly, rumbling with pleasure as she traced her warm wet fingertips up and down his throat. “Just in case anyone checks with a judge. But what I was waving around today was just the sports page wrapped up in a piece of legal foolscap.”

“Mmm… pity.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did you want me to arrest you, Miss Fisher?”

“Well… not officially…” She curled her fingers around his braces and pulled him down for a heated kiss.


	105. Formalwear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I was going to wear that!” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Jack raised an eyebrow at his lover’s attire. “Of all the outfits I thought you’d be wearing this evening,” he said, after a moment’s contemplation, “I wasn’t expecting black tie and tails.”

“Are you complaining?”

“No,” said Jack, with a soft voice and a slow smile. “Why the tuxedo?”

“The party my client’s invited me to is at a members-only club with a very strict dress code. Black tie and tails for everyone. No exceptions.” Phryne eyed herself critically in the long mirror. “Not bad. Although the stiff collar’s a perfect torment.”

“Mm hmm.”

“Oh, don’t complain to me about menswear, Jack Robinson. You’ve no idea the agonies women suffer for the sake of looking good.”

“I will never complain about men’s formalwear again.” He reached out and took the heavy black silk bowtie from her, smiling. “When it can look like _that_.”

Phryne returned the compliment with a slow sweep of her eyes that took in Jack’s entire (and entirely admirable) body. “Good. Then you can dress up for me more often. But in the meantime, I need that.” She held out her hand for the tie. 

Instead, Jack turned her back to the mirror, and leaned down so that his lips brushed the shell of her ear. He tucked the tie under the collar of her dress shirt and slowly knotted it beneath her chin, listening to her quickening breath. He examined her reflection and then kissed her flushed cheek. 

“Have a good time at the party,” he chuckled softly.


	106. Show Piece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Show me, again.” Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Phryne hit a wrong note and cringed. “Sorry!”

Her instructor, who was in most other things possessed of admirable patience, groaned loudly. “I know you never take anything seriously,” Jack huffed, “but if you don’t intend to concentrate, why did you ask me to show you?” He readjusted the position of her hands on the keys. 

Phryne had the decency to at least look apologetic. “Sorry, Jack. I do want to brush up on my piano-playing, but just being near you is _so_ distracting.” She sighed dramatically. “And it’s such a tiny bench. Perhaps if I sat on your lap?”

“…No.” But he made up for the denial with a peck on her cheek. “Didn’t your expensive English finishing school teach you how to play? I thought it was still considered a necessary accomplishment for fine young ladies.”

“It certainly was when I was in school, but the headmistress was too busy trying to shove correct deportment down my throat to care much that I couldn’t tell a sharp from a flat. Then when I finally realized I could use deportment to my advantage, I stopped fighting.” She shrugged and depressed a key idly. “Never could find a use for piano playing, so I didn’t bother trying to learn.”

“Hmm. So why now?” Jack laid his hands on the keyboard and played a slow, careful scale exercise. “Do you actually _want_ to learn to play? Or is this just an excuse to snuggle up?”

“As if I need an excuse.” She returned his kiss on the cheek with one of her own. “Well… you’re a much better teacher than the one I had in finishing school. And it does seem silly to keep this great big monster in my parlour on the off-chance I have a gentleman caller who wants to serenade me.”

“…It never ceases to amaze me that you bought a baby grand piano solely as a show piece, and for the pleasure of hypothetical guests.”

“I wanted it,” Phryne said simply. “So I bought it.”

“You are the most wasteful and impractical person I have ever met.” Jack rolled his eyes and kissed her soundly, then replaced her playfully wandering hands back on the keys. “Now, let’s try this again.”


	107. Slumming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What’s this?” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Picking up from [Chapter 86: No Names](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11402347)

“I sent Cec off wi’ the cab, t’ take Dottie and Mr. Butler t’ the dance, but they said y’ wanted t’ see me, miss?”

Bert stood alone in the hall, feeling awkward there. Phryne came out of the parlour and, rather to Bert’s astonishment, looped her arms around his neck and kissed him. His hands went to her hips out of habit rather than from any active thought. She’d never just up and kissed him for no reason, and the touch of her lips, as always, went straight to his cock. 

When she pulled away, reluctantly, to breathe, there was a glad little sparkle in her eyes that he’d seen a million times before, when she had a caper on the brain. She took his hands and started to lead him towards the stairs. 

“Miss, what’s—?”

“We’ve the house all to ourselves, and I promise, my bed is far more comfortable than the cab’s upholstery.” She leaned forward to nip his bottom lip playfully. “We can take our time, for once…” She had one foot on the bottom stair, and was pulling him forward by the sheer force of her enthusiasm.

Bert shook himself inwardly and pulled back, watching her a little nervously.

There were a few hard frantic fucks behind them – in the back of the cab, in the back of the Soviet club, in a greasy back alley after a botched break-in – but she’d never purposely invited him to spend the night before. He wasn’t sure if he liked the prospect. A quick shag when the blood was up was one thing, over and done with in a few minutes and then laughed off by both of them, but even with as good a time as he’d been having, he wasn’t about to become the boss’s plaything. 

“You can say no, Bert,” Phryne promised, as she stood on the stairs with one hand on the banister, and studied the emotions playing over his face. “It’s not part of the job.”

“Wouldn’t still be here if I thought it was.” He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, eyeing not the woman offering him the pleasures of her bed, but the distance he’d have to cross to get to it. “I ain’t afraid of you takin’ a different view of things than you’ve done so far,” he said, in his blunt way. “You’re not that kinda lady.”

“I think we both know what we want from one another,” she agreed calmly.

Bert gestured to the stairs, indicating the landing and by extension, the boudoir beyond. “But I ain’t like your other fellas. What you’ve seen so far… well, that’s all I got t’ offer. Nothin’ fancy.” He gave a tight shrug of his shoulders. “Good enough for a boardin’ house bed.”

“But not good enough for mine?” Phryne smiled. “Believe me, Bert. If I want something fancy, I know where to find it.”

“So you feel like slummin’ it tonight, is that it?” 

“‘Slumming?’ Bert. If I’d grown up in the same place I was born, you’d be the one slumming it with me.” Phryne stepped down until she was back on his level. “What I feel like,” she said, with a calm intensity that warned him not to insult her like that again, “is spending the night with a friend. Someone who knows me, and who knows what I like, and who’s not going to expect anything more or less than the same in return.” 

She took his hands and placed them very deliberately around her slim waist. He flexed his fingers and felt the muscles hiding under her fine silk blouse. “It’s always a relief to me, to spend the night with an equal.”

Bert swallowed the rest of his nervousness and smiled. “Never slept on satin sheets before,” he murmured, brushing a kiss across her lips. “But I guess you ain’t planning on me gettin’ much sleep tonight.”


	108. Mending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You did this for me?” (Jack and Jane) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack’s nose awoke before the rest of him, recognizing the smell as one that was indicative of home and comfort and warm kitchens, and his unconscious mind wove the smell into such a delicious dream that he almost cried when he woke and found himself in the hospital bed, where he had lain for over a month as he recovered from a severe gunshot wound. 

“Are you all right, Uncle Jack?” A young, worried face swam into view before his groggy eyes. 

“…Janey?” Against all orders, he sat up. It hurt like hell, but not appallingly so. “Oh, God, it’s good to see you. But you’re supposed to be in Italy.”

She smiled back tears and hovered just beyond the reach of his arms. “Miss Phryne wrote me that you’d been shot and would be in hospital for a while. It took longer to get home than I expected.”

Jack drank in the sight of her and found he had to blink back some tears of his own. “You didn’t have to go to all that trouble. I’m on the mend, I promise.” He glared at her with mock-sternness and held out his arms. “Now come here.” 

She hugged him gently, trying not to cry. He kissed her cheek and smiled. “Don’t go back to Europe for a while, Janey,” he said, looking at her hair and clothes and face wistfully. “Every time you come home, you’re that much more grown up.”

“I’ll be home for a bit,” Jane promised. “And…” She stooped and picked up a basket from the floor beside the head of his bed—the source, Jack realized, of the familiar mouth-watering smell. “I brought you something. I made them myself, this morning.”

He accepted the fresh Anzac biscuits with profound gratitude. “Thank you, Janey,” he smiled, squeezing her hand.


	109. Diverting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In an unusual departure, I’m saving the reveal of the actual prompt until the end. ;)

Phryne tapped her fingers irritably on the arm of her parlour chair. Jack stood before her, hands folded in front of him, waiting for her to speak. 

“I thought we had an agreement,” she said, finally. “I thought we’d discussed, very clearly, that you weren’t to come here tonight.”

“We did,” Jack confirmed. 

“So _why_ are you here?”

She saw his Adam’s apple bob visibly as he swallowed. “I forgot.”

“You… forgot.” Phryne narrowed her glittering green eyes at him. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. I had a long and difficult day, and I completely forgot, Phryne. I’m sorry.”

“…Hmm. You do realize that I was meant to have guests tonight.”

“I did recall that, yes, once I was in the hall.” He tilted his head slightly. “I didn’t actually mean to frighten those two young men off. Although if just the sight of a plainclothes police officer was enough to scare them away, you’re probably better off without them.”

“Be that as it may, Jack, your untimely arrival has deprived me of what I’d intended to be a highly diverting evening.” Phryne rose in one swift motion and stood immediately before him, so that (in her impressive heels) they were nose to nose. “You’re so rarely in the mood for that particular pleasure, so I have to go and seek it elsewhere.”

“And on that,” he replied, in a low, steady voice that was nevertheless humming with tension, “we are in agreement that you may. I’m deeply sorry to have ruined your evening’s entertainment, Phryne. It was not intentional. But,” he continued, with a wicked gleam in his blue eyes, “given that the gentlemen you’d chosen for your escapades are no longer here, then clearly, they weren’t worth your time.”

“I don’t fuck men with guilty consciences,” Phryne agreed. “I much prefer my lovers to be joyous in their sinning.” She grabbed him by the front of his trousers, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make Jack gasp and stand even more strictly at attention. “And as you’ve made a mess of my evening, Jack Robinson, I think it’s only fair that you make it up to me.”

“You know I’m always happy to oblige,” he replied, his voice beginning to go husky. “But I’m not going out to find another man to join us. Not tonight.”

“That’s quite all right, Jack,” she said, kissing him with her teeth on his lips, and jerking open the buttons at the front of his trousers. She palmed him through his shorts and smirked to feel how hard he was. “After all, a cock in the hand is worth two in the bush, isn’t that how the saying goes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A cock in the hand is worth two in the bush, isn’t that how the saying goes?” Requested by medeaofcolchis. 
> 
> It was too beautiful, I simply _had_ to use it in the text. ♥


	110. Loyalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Mal comune, mezzo gaudio.” (A shared trouble is half joy.) (Jack/Concetta) Requested by TheHonorableMrsMcCarthy.

Jack sat in his usual table in the quiet dining room. It was well after hours, but he had obeyed her request to see him tonight. It was the least he could do. “To be honest,” he said, slowly, fiddling with his cutlery, “I didn’t think you’d ever want to see me again. I practically destroyed your family.”

“We destroyed ourselves.” Concetta sat down in the chair opposite him and gripped his knee. “You were not to blame for what happened,” she said firmly. “Nor was I.” She shook her head. “We each had a job to do. Mine was to be a dutiful granddaughter. Yours was to seek justice. It is no stain on my soul that my grandfather was not worthy of my loyalty.”

Jack felt his jaw tightening ominously. The downfall of Antonio Strano and the imprisonment of his potential in-law, leaving the granddaughter to cope with the pain and loss alone, were too eerily similar to what had happened with George Sanderson. At least Rosie wasn’t as alone as Concetta… 

A gentle hand touched his face. “I am sorry,” said Concetta, her face full of honest sympathy. “I did not mean to bring up old pain.”

This time, Jack smiled. “No… Thank you,” he murmured, turning to brush his lips across her palm.


	111. What Ifs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t think I can. I don’t dare.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rivendellrose.

They sat in the window seat in her parlour, after the wedding, for what seemed like hours, with his arm around her shoulders, and his cheek resting on her hair.

“I should go,” Jack murmured, too soon. “It’s late. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to…”

Phryne lifted her head from its place on his shoulder. “Then stay,” she replied softly. Her hand crept from where it had rested on his chest, up his neck, to curl against his jawbone. “Stay with me tonight, Jack.” Her thumb tentatively traced the curve of his lower lip.

Slowly, his eyes very dark and sad, Jack shook his head. “If I stay,” he said, his voice husky and low and painfully tender, “and you fly away tomorrow and never come back, I will spend the rest of my life regretting that I didn’t act sooner. I can live with ‘what ifs’, Phryne. I couldn’t live with that memory.”

Her thumb stroked a little more confidently at his lips, and he turned his head to brush a feathery, gentle kiss across her palm. “But I _will_ come back,” she promised.


	112. Stud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re a shameless enabler.” Requested by medeaofcolchis.

Phryne leaned in her parlour doorway, in an attitude copied from her favorite detective inspector, and favoured her aunt with a strange expression. “I’m in rather a situation, Aunt P,” she said, “and I’m tempted to blame you.”

Prudence paused with a biscuit halfway to her lips. “Me?” She returned her niece’s gaze with steady indignation. “What on earth have I done?”

“Little Ian is going to have a sibling.”

“Is he? Well,” the old woman huffed, “that’s certainly nothing to do with me. What was I supposed to do, Phryne? Talk you out of—of _sharing_ Inspector Robinson?”

“Oh, for… he’s not my property, Aunt Prudence. Even if we were married, which we are still not considering, he _still_ wouldn’t be my property. Any more than I am his,” she added, very pointedly. 

So pointedly, in fact, that Prudence was actually surprised. There was extra vehemence in that statement. “Be that as it may,” she said quietly, finishing her biscuit, “if you insist upon… upon being agreeable to Inspector Robinson acting as a stud horse for Dr. MacMillan—”

“Mac’s not the mother.”

Prudence’s jaw dropped. “Oh good lord, I hope you’re charging these women a fee.”

“Aunt Prudence!” Phryne exclaimed, torn between horror and hilarity. “The only women Jack has any sort of intimacies with—”

“Spare me the sordid details of your modern arrangements, child.”

“—are Mac and myself. That’s all. There are no other women.” 

“Then who…” Prudence’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, my dear Phryne.” She looked at her niece in utter amazement. “But how in the world is that my fault?”

“Well, you did keep insisting that because I was good with Ian, I’d obviously make a good mother, which is nonsense, of course. But your words have a way of worming themselves into my brain, and, well…” Phryne touched her still-trim stomach with light fingers. “Here we are.”

“I thought you took _precautions_ to prevent this sort of thing,” said Prudence, mouthing ‘precautions’ with a very knowing air. 

“I do.”

“So this wasn’t an accident, then.”

For the first time in a very long time, Phryne Fisher blushed. “No,” she said softly, remembering how overjoyed and humbled Jack had been when she’d told him, in no uncertain terms, that she wanted his child, “it wasn’t.”


	113. Unbreakable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” (Rosie/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> This idea was originally going to be a scene in [Falling In at Night](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4642038). It didn’t fit with the story as completed, but it was just too beautiful not to share.

She reached up and pulled Jack’s head down to hers, and thank God, he made no protest, he just melted into her touch as easily as he used to before, when they were young and carefree, as he had when he’d come home from France so changed that the only time she recognized him was in the dark.

They shed their clothes and enfolded each other in their arms, and he touched her so gently that she cried from the sweetness of it. “I’m not going to break, Jack,” she said, as much to reassure herself.

His lips were tender in her hair. “I know you’re not. But even unbreakable things should be treated with respect.”

He held her the way he held the flowers in his garden, cupping her gently and breathing warmth across her skin. His long fingers touched her intimate places as deftly as though they had never been apart, and then he moved in her slowly, drawing her close to protect her from the horrors she had sought his embrace to avoid.

And Rosie knew she could trust Jack to protect her, as he had always done. Even when they became strangers, he had wanted only what was best for her.

She stiffened in his arms as her climax washed through her, and then sighed, going limp. Jack kissed her face softly and laid her down, and would have withdrawn but for Rosie clasping his head to her breast. “Please, Jack.”

“I... I don’t need to.”

Her heart pounded against her ribs, quickening again not with desire, but with fear. She pushed through it and said what had been lingering in the hard hot lump in her throat. “I need you to. I don’t want to remember him inside me. Give me this, Jack. Let me remember this instead.”

The look in his eyes haunted her. He wanted her, and wanted another, and if Rosie had not been in his bed, he would have been in _her_ bed... but he was here, simply because the woman who he had promised to love and to cherish had needed him just once more. After what seemed like an eternity, his jaw clenched, and tears began to slip down his cheeks.

He pressed his lips to hers, murmuring things she had never thought to hear him say again, and moving inside her with slow, purposeful strokes. When his climax overtook him, it was almost peaceful. “Oh,” he gasped softly. “Oh...”

Rosie closed her eyes and stroked his hair, and folded away this moment to hold in her heart.


	114. Suggestions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Why would you even suggest such a thing?!” Requested by rivendellrose.

At Phryne’s request, Jack’s face immediately fell. “Well, if you’re really _that_ opposed to the idea,” she added, a little disappointed but determined not to whine about it, “I won’t insist.”

“I just... I’m not sure I understand.”

“What’s to understand, darling? It’s just something a bit different.”

“Well yes, but...” Jack scrubbed a hand through his damp hair, now washed clean of its daily pomade. “Am I doing something not to your liking?”

Phryne pouted. “Not at all! I just thought it would be rather sweet.”

Most of the time, Jack was immune to Phryne’s pouting. But when they were already in bed, and her face was scrubbed clean and sleepy, it was a different story. At last, he sighed. “Oh, all right,” he grumbled, lying down on his side. 

Smiling to herself, Phryne pressed a fond kiss to his shoulder and snuggled down behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle. “You see, Jack? It’s just as nice to be the little spoon sometimes.”


	115. Informal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A buon intenditor poche parole.” (Few words are needed for the good listener.) (Jack/Concetta) Requested by TheHonorableMrsMcCarthy.
> 
> Takes place after 2x06 “Blood at the Wheel”.

Too raw to go home, Jack drove through the darkened streets of Melbourne. Where he was going, he neither knew nor cared tonight. He had no destination in mind; his hands took the turns automatically, naturally. He knew his city inside and out. He had always thought of it as his, from his boyhood in Richmond to the trenches of France, and now that one woman had left him and he’d forced himself to leave another, it seemed to be all he would ever have.

When the car came to a halt, it took Jack a moment to get his bearings. He blinked at the warm lights of the elegant building, their glow softened by gauzy white curtains in the windows, bordered by heavier drapes which had not yet been pulled shut. 

It was late. Too late, certainly, for anyone to be expecting customers, so he climbed the steps and instead of simply opening the door to the restaurant, he knocked, hoping someone would answer. 

After a moment or two, the heavy door creaked open, and a familiar and therefore welcome face peered out at him. “Gianni? What—?” Concetta pulled the door open, tugging a shawl round her shoulders against the chill of the evening. She was less formally dressed than Jack remembered seeing her. Normally he saw her only when she was acting as hostess for the restaurant’s clientele. And once or twice, he had seen her in… very informal circumstances. 

He searched for words, and found none. His throat clenched at the very thought of trying to tell her about Phryne Fisher. As his silence dragged on, a shadow passed over her face. “Has something happened to Pappa Antonio or Vincenzo?”

“What? No, no… they’re not here?”

“No, they’re at their club tonight. They won’t be back until very late. Or until morning,” she added, with a wry smile. 

Jack nodded dumbly. Concetta frowned and reached for his hand. “What’s happened?”

“I…” He swallowed, feeling the tears threatening again. “I had a shock tonight, Concetta. I didn’t want to be alone, and… I couldn’t think who else to turn to.”

Her eyes softened, and she squeezed his fingers warmly. “Come inside, Gianni. We will talk, hmm?”

“I’m not sure I can.”

She drew him inside the warm dining room and shut the door behind him. “Then say nothing,” she said simply, kissing his lips gently. “And I will listen.”


	116. Insensibility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I think I broke something.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

When Phryne returned from the bathroom, she found Jack precisely where she had left him, sprawled across the center of her bed, long legs hanging over the edge, arse on full display, with the marks of her fingernails winking pinkly at her. She grinned and stooped down to press a kiss to his left buttock. “You’d be much more comfortable if you turned round ninety degrees or so.”

“I’m not moving an inch,” Jack muttered, his face half-mashed into the bedclothes. “In fact, Miss Fisher, I may never move again.”

“Oh no?”

“ _No_ , because I can’t feel my legs at all. Or anything below my navel.”

“So what exactly are you saying, Jack?” Phryne asked, discarding her dressing gown and stretching her lithe body beside his. She pillowed her chin on her folded arms and stared at his half-hidden face until he opened one eye. “That I’ve ravished you into insensibility?”

“...Yes. Yes, that is precisely what I’m saying.”

She smirked and brought her face very close to his. “Are you complaining?” she whispered. 

He managed a smile, and a very cheeky smile, at that. “No.”


	117. Dynamics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Damn you.” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.

“Evenin’, Miss.” Bert looked up from his labored perusal of the bookshelves as Phryne came into the parlour. 

She smiled at him, but it was a weary expression and barely reached her eyes. “Hello, Bert. What brings you here this evening?”

“Nothin’ much. Thought I might keep you company t’night.” Bert tried not to let the hope show on his face. His room at the boarding house was singularly lonely since Cec had married, and although he was welcome to move in with Cec and Alice at their new home, the thought didn’t appeal to Bert. “Thought I’d at least ask. You said I could ask,” he added, after a long awkward moment without a response. 

“Of course you can ask,” Phryne assured him. “But not tonight. It’s been a very long day, and... not tonight.”

“...Right. You want your sleep. I understand.” He tried to smile understandingly. “I ain’t the sort of fella you can just sleep next to. I get it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Phryne, rather abruptly. “I just... I’m not in the mood, Bert. I’m going to bed. You’re welcome to spend the night, but it won’t be with me.” She turned and left the parlour. 

Bert frowned and hurried after her. “Wait up, Miss!” He caught her by the arm just long enough to get her attention and then immediately released her. “You ain’t yourself.”

“No,” she agreed. “I’m not. That’s why I don’t want you to stay.”

He started to speak, thought better of it, and then tried again. “I know this ain’t part of our arrangement, miss, but... things bein’ what they are, maybe you could use a friend tonight.”

“Bert, I... can’t....” She let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s Jack. We argued over a case, and... over us...”

“So you had a tiff wi’ the stuffiest cop at City South.” Bert shrugged. “So what? That’s got nothin’ t’ do wi’ me.”

Phryne shook her head tiredly. “I can’t let you comfort me over another man, Bert. That’s not fair to you.”

Bert’s eyes narrowed. “Now let’s get one thing straight ‘ere, Miss Fisher.” He took a step or two forward, close enough to make his point but not so close that she felt threatened. He knew her well enough to know better. “You don’t ‘let’ me do anythin’ except up in that bed. Anything else I offer t’ do, it’s ‘cause I want to. An’ right now, I want to be right here.”

That made Phryne smile a little. “What, standing in my front hall arguing with me about employer-worker dynamics?”

Well, she wasn’t wrong... but Bert wasn’t thinking of Miss Fisher as his boss tonight. Lately, the only times he thought of her like that was when she actually had a job for him to do. He rolled his eyes and held out his arms. “C’mere, luv.”

She was probably cursing him for his compassion. He knew how hard it was, admitting you needed someone. But she went to him and let him wrap his strong arms around her. “I don’t want a lover tonight, Bert. I just want someone to hold me.”

“Fine by me, miss, so long’s we can do that upstairs. This hall’s getting kinda chilly.”


	118. Black Silk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What is THAT for?” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog. Kinda NSFW.
> 
> The names thing came up in the comments for the last Phryne/Bert drabble, so I figured that should also be addressed. :)

As soon as Bert saw the strips of black silk laid out on Phryne’s bed, he was on his guard. “What were ya plannin’ to do with those, exactly?”

She shut the door and locked it, not to keep him in, but to keep well-meaning staff out. Mr. Butler and Dot would never dream of entering her bedroom without knocking, but it never hurt to take precautions. “I’ll tell you, on condition that you don’t immediately stalk out.”

“You ain’t tyin’ me up.”

“Of course not, if you don’t want me to.” Phryne kissed Bert’s cheek and applied herself to the buttons of his hard-working waistcoat. Flirting with Bert when he got into a mulish mood never seemed to work, but he responded well to bluntness. “But there was something I wanted to show you.”

He pursed his lips in a frown, shook his head, and then put his hand under her chin. “If it involves me not bein’ able to use my hands,” he murmured, very seriously, before kissing her, “I ain’t int’rested.”

Things progressed in the usual way after that, until Phryne found herself beneath Bert with her hands pinned lightly over her head. “You know,” she said, gasping lightly as his soft lips played over her breasts, “this is hardly fair.”

“Eh?”

“You pinning me down like that, after you wouldn’t let me tie you up.”

“Yeah, but you do this t’ me all the time.”

“Well yes, but you’re so much _bigger_ and _stronger_ than I am…” 

Bert could hardly keep a straight face at that, and didn’t bother trying. “As if you couldn’t put me on my back wi’out breakin’ a—oomph!” Rather suddenly, he _was_ on his back, with Phryne Fisher straddling his hips, her small strong hands effectively immobilizing his wrists. “Well, don’t you look much too pleased with yerself, Miss. You did it t’ me again, caught me off-guard.”

“I did. Of course I couldn’t have done it if you were prepared, and I can’t hold you here for long. The only reason you’re letting me hold you down,” she said, her voice calm and quiet and soft, as though she hadn’t been panting for him mere seconds before, “is because you like it, and you trust me.”

“That’s… I guess.” He glanced nervously to the dressing table chair, where the simple strips of black silk had migrated. 

She followed his line of sight and then bent and kissed him briefly, before fetching the silk and returning to her spot across his middle. Her mound was warm against his belly, and the smell of her made his mouth water.

He watched the lean muscles of her torso ripple under her soft skin, as she stretched over him to tie his wrists to the brass head of her bed. One pale pink nipple was in easy reach, so he caught it between his teeth and tugged lightly. Phryne smiled and ran her hands through his blond hair.

“It’s not about supremacy or domination, Bert,” she promised. “…Although those can be quite fun.” She leaned over him, gently raking her nails down the inside of his biceps. Bound as he was, he couldn’t get away from the sensation, which when he was made to endure it, was both ticklish and tantalizing. “It’s about pleasure. There can be immense pleasure in submitting to someone you trust and care for, in giving up a little control. And there’s power in it, as well, because at any moment, you know you can take that control back.”

Phryne reached for a third strip of silk. “This is meant for a blindfold,” she told him. “I don’t think you expected that.”

He hadn’t. “What’s that for?”

“Heightened pleasure,” she murmured, kissing a path over his right cheek and down his throat. “Every touch, every sound, every taste…” She dipped her hand into the curls between her thighs and held them to his lips. He inhaled the musky sweetness on them and suckled greedily. “Becomes exquisite.”

“If you do this for me, I’ll do it for you. That’s what we agreed on.”

Bert looked at the silk in her hands and swallowed hard. “Right, go ahead, then.”

She kissed his eyelids, and then covered his eyes with the silk and tied it firmly behind his head. He strained to see even a particle of light, but the fabric was thicker than he’d expected. “Can’t believe I let you do this.” 

Phryne’s body was warm as she made her way down his chest and stomach, warmer than he’d ever realized, and softer. He’d always focused on the strength of her before, never the softness... “Any time you want it to end, just say so.”

“Did I say I wanted it t’ end?” Bert started to grumble, before his words were cut off by a sudden low moan as her lips closed around his cock. “Can’t… can’t figure sometimes how it even started. How we started. Hell, I still can’t figure what’m even I supposed to call you,” he muttered, wrinkling his nose where the blindfold tickled slightly. “‘Phryne’ don’t seem right.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ‘Miss,’ if that’s what you prefer,” she said gently, licking him from base to tip. She’d done it to him a hundred times before, but as she’d promised, his sense of touch was heightened by not being able to see what she was doing, and her warm wet mouth felt unbelievably good. “Jack still insists on calling me ‘Miss Fisher.’”

“You’re not sleeping with Robinson.”

“Well. Not yet.” There was an audible grin in Phryne’s voice, and Bert felt a stab of amusement at the inspector’s expense, for when he finally did succumb. “But I’ve no doubt that when he’s where you are, he’ll still be calling me Miss Fisher.” She took Bert in hand and lowered herself with aching care onto his wet cock. “Mmm… It’s practically an endearment, at this point. I rather like it.” 

Bert groaned and twisted his fingers around the silk at his wrists. He’d never realized how strong silk was, until he tried to break free from it. He wanted to touch her… “How ‘bout when I call you ‘Miss’?”

“When we’re downstairs, of course, it’s simply appropriate.” She rode him slowly, dragging her body up his length so that he could feel every hot second of her flesh, and then just as agonizingly spearing herself again and grinding against him... “But when we’re up here… or in the back of the cab… or anywhere alone… _oh…_ ” Phryne bent and brushed her lips over his, let him catch her mouth with his and kiss her hungrily. “I’ve never been called anything quite so intimate.” He bucked his hips suddenly, filling her. Her abandoned gasp was so sweet in his ears… “Say it again, please.” 

“Miss,” he growled against her lips, “my Miss…”


	119. Scarf or Powder?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “But it hurts so good!” (Phryne/Mac) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Phryne examined herself critically in her dressing table mirror. “Scarf or powder, do you think, darling?”

Mac, who was taking a well-deserved day off from the hospital, the university, and the morgue, sprawled indolently across Phryne’s bed and pondered the question. “I suppose that depends on how active you plan to be today.”

She received a long, meaningful over-the-shoulder glance in return. “After the night we just had, I don’t plan to do anything more active than lunching with a very stuffy duke and duchess, and the duke’s very amusing younger brother. I’d rather spend the day luxuriating in the Turkish baths, but one’s society duties can’t be neglected forever, and the younger brother is a friend.”

“Hmm. Besides, neither scarf nor powder would survive the steam.” Mac twisted herself into an upright position and draped one leg over the other, giving Phryne a very artistic view of her considerable charms. “If I’d known you had an engagement today, I would’ve been less… enthusiastic. Anyone seeing you from a distance would think you were wearing a ruby necklace.”

Phryne gave Mac a long, slow smile. “But I _like_ it when you’re enthusiastic,” she replied softly, her green eyes dark and sultry. She traced the marks left my Mac’s eager lips and teeth and let out a quiet little wince, and then a moan. 

Mac’s breath hitched in her chest. “You’re not going to be in time for that luncheon, if you keep teasing me like that.”

The dressing gown slipped temptingly from Phryne’s shoulder. “Then stop making me tease, darling.”


	120. Conclusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I can explain!” (Jack and Jane and Phryne) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack knotted his tie with rather more force than usual. Phryne gave him a lopsided smile. “You don’t seem as though you’re looking forward to breakfast this morning.”

“I’m not, as you know perfectly well.” He pulled on his suit jacket, and straightened his collar and his cuffs with military precision. “This isn’t the sort of conversation I’d ever expected to have with Jane.”

“Well, she is _my_ ward. I suppose some of my more adventurous habits were bound to rub off. All part of the trials of parenting, I’m told.”

“It’s not the adventurous habits I mind. She’s only seventeen!”

Phryne reached up and loosened his tie just a fraction, to remind him to breathe. “Yes, she is, and I was only seventeen when I had my first sexual experience. And at least Jane understands how to use contraceptives. I made sure of that before she went to the continent. And,” she finished, smoothing her hands down the lapels of his jacket, “we don’t actually know what happened. Your fatherly protective instincts are noted and appreciated, but let’s not jump to conclusions.”

Frankly, Jack wasn’t sure what other conclusions he was supposed to make, after what he had seen the night before, but Phryne was right. Theoretically, it might’ve all been perfectly innocent. Theoretically. Might have.

“Morning, Jane!” Phryne sang out, as always, when she and Jack descended the stairs and entered the dining room together. 

“Morning, Miss Phryne,” Jane said, politely covering her mouth to hide a yawn. “Morning, Uncle Jack.”

“You’re not your usual early bird self today,” Jack noted, sitting down at his usual place opposite Jane. Phryne, as always, took the seat at the head of the table. “Didn’t sleep well?”

“I was up late studying.” 

Jack and Phryne exchanged a look over their breakfast pancakes without quite seeming to. It was a skill they had learned was essential, with a teenager in the house. And they silently agreed that Jane was usually a much better liar than that, as she’d had to become, with a pair of detectives for foster parents. “I was up late myself,” said Jack, in a conversational tone that fooled no one, “at the station. I didn’t get home until two in the morning. Do you know what I saw when I came home, Jane?”

She stiffened visibly. He only called her ‘Jane’ when he was in a very serious mood. “No, sir.”

He looked at her with a steady, unwavering gaze. “I saw a figure climbing out of your bedroom window and sneaking away down the back stairs.”

“Jane,” said Phryne quietly. “Was there someone in your room last night?”

“Yes, but it’s not what you think!”

“We’re not thinking anything yet,” Phryne promised. Jack struggled not to roll his eyes. “But if there’s a reason why this person had to be in your room without our knowing… well, I think you ought to tell us now.”

Jane swallowed nervously. “It… it was a boy.”

Phryne glanced at Jack. “Go on.”

“But we didn’t do anything, I swear—” 

“Janey.” He took a deep breath to calm himself, and then looked at his adopted daughter with all the fondness and love he had ever felt for her. “You’re not in trouble. We trust you. But we expect you to return that trust but not sneaking boys into your bedroom in the middle of the night.”

The girl blinked once or twice and then nodded tearfully. “His name’s Andrew Murphy. He’s a boy from Melrose Grammar. We’re just friends, but I think… I think he likes me. He kissed me, but that’s all.”

“That’s usually a good indication,” said Phryne gently. 

“I didn’t want to do anything else, and he didn’t ask me to. He just wanted to talk. He’s got problems at home, and the other boys pick on him for being slow. I help him with his history homework, and he helps me with my drawing. That’s all.”

“If that’s all, Janey, then why can’t he come to the front door to visit?”

“Because then everyone would think we were sweet on each other, and—and I don’t like—him—that way.”

Jack recalled the French ambassador’s daughter the year before, and nodded his comprehension. 

“It would just make things worse for him at his school, and he’s already tried to run away from home once before.” Jane looked worriedly from Phryne to Jack. “Are you going to tell his parents?”

“Of course not,” said Phryne firmly. “But we can’t have any more nocturnal visits, Jane. If someone besides Jack had seen this young man, it could have been very damaging for both of you, not just for young Mr. Murphy.” She tapped her fork thoughtfully against the side of her plate. “Jack, your nephew goes to Melrose Grammar, doesn’t he?”

“He does. An excellent pretext for paying a visit to the school.”

“And perhaps for offering young Mr. Murphy to pay a call on his schoolmate’s uncle once in a while? Simply as a matter of courtesy, of course.”

“Of course,” said Jack dryly.

Jane’s smile was bright with relief. “Of course.”


	121. Dignity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Niente più tosto si secca che lacrime.” (Nothing dries sooner than tears.) (Jack/Concetta) Requested by TheHonorableMrsMcCarthy.

They sat in silence at the little table, in the empty restaurant lit only by candles. They had sat thus on many other nights, sometimes talking, sometimes enjoying the intimacy of silence, but now the quiet was oppressive. “Have you thought about it, Gianni?” Concetta ventured at last. “What I am offering to you?” 

He looked at her so seriously, not as her late husband had first looked at her, as a dowry in human shape, but as an equal, a woman worthy of consideration and respect. “I’ve thought of nothing else,” he said huskily. Concetta knew that soft sound, and a hint of a smile passed over her lips. It was the voice he had used when he had gone to her bed, many months ago. It had only happened once, though both had yearned for more. He was a strong man, with strong passions, but he knew how to check them. It thrilled her. He wanted to say yes, she was certain… but whether he was free to… no, that, she did not know.

Her eyes met his for a moment. They were so dark, full of longing, and loneliness, that she could not look into them for long. So she dropped her gaze to his lips instead. “First... there is something I need to make sure of. For myself.” 

He was still for a moment, his expression never wavering, and then he nodded.

Concetta leaned forward and cupped his head in her hand, and kissed him, slowly and deliberately, testing him.

They had kissed before, many times. Friendly pecks on the cheek. Passionate kisses on the mouth that had led to kisses in other places. Times when each knew what the other wanted, what was in the other’s heart. This time, his hesitant lips told a different story.

Her hand pulled back to rest against the side of his neck. She stroked his cheekbone with her thumb and could not find the strength to meet his eyes. “You don’t need to say it,” she murmured, her own voice growing husky as her heart broke within her chest, and she took refuge for a moment in the language of her childhood, before reverting to his English and looking up. “Your heart is... it’s taken.” 

God bless him, he looked as devastated as she felt. “I care for you,” he protested in a whisper, trying to shake his head. “You deserve to be happy...” 

“Shh…” she chided, almost brushing her thumb over his lower lip. “I will. I will be fine,” she assured him, touching his cheek gently, and gazing at him with the resignation that was the only dignified response to the truth, that this good man could not be hers. “And Roberto will hang. And when I marry again it will be for love.” It was a promise, both to herself and to him, for somehow she felt that Gianni would not allow any man to marry her who did not love her as much as he wished he could. “But you are taken.”

She forced herself to take her hand from his face, to stop touching him. He belonged to another, no matter how much he might try to fool himself. It was not right. 

Gently, he covered her hand with his own, as it lay on the table. “I’ll go, if you want me to.”

She did not want him to. But she should send him away, to go to her. He belonged there. And she? She belonged to no one. 

Concetta turned her head away from his sorrowful gaze and cried silently. Her tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto the front of her dress. When she was calm, she felt his hands on her face, gently wiping away the tear tracks.


	122. Overtaken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You ought to come with a warning label.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by slimwhistler.

“I’m very unhappy with you, Miss Fisher,” said Jack without preamble, when she turned up out of nowhere on the scene of his latest murder, a rather gruesome but potentially open-and-shut case of a dead husband and a missing wife. “Exceptionally unhappy, in fact.”

“That does sound serious.” And to her credit, she did him the honour of at least appeared as though she was taking him seriously. “May I ask the reason?”

“As I was returning from Ballarat last night,” Jack said, sternly, pulling something from his pocket, “I was overtaken by a very irate local constable.” He showed Phryne the small piece of paper.

She peered at the policeman’s scrawl carefully, and then her face lit up. “Jack! You got a speeding ticket!”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s very tedious and annoying, but why are you upset with me?”

He glanced round, saw that his constables were all decently busy and not paying him the slightest overt attention, and leaned in to whisper in Phryne’s ear, “Because I was thinking of you.” She shivered at the caress of his voice. “I was thinking of your kisses, and hurrying to get back to them. You intoxicate me, Miss Fisher.”

Jack started to draw back, but Phryne caught him by the lapel of his coat and pulled him in for one of her most dangerous kisses. “I suppose I should pay your ticket, in that case,” she murmured, biting softly at his lower lip. “But take care, Jack: that’s the only warning you’ll get.”


	123. Unconscionable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Can we just forget this ever happened?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Phryne fixed her policeman friend with a very chilly and well-bred look. “I’ve always been very grateful, you know, that you were the policeman I fell in with. You’re a liberal-minded man, Jack Robinson – well, at least enough of one to not judge people on the basis of their lovers.”

It was both a compliment and a terrible reproach, and Jack chose to address the latter. “I will never stop being ashamed of what I said that night.”

“You were rather intoxicated. And I didn’t take offense at the catalog of my past lovers. Only that you of all people had the bad taste to fling them in my face in that manner. I’m not changing for the sake of your sensibilities, Jack. I can’t stop you from _feeling_ jealous, but you have _no right_ to behave that way towards me.”

“I know.”

“Good. Because I am not responsible for your happiness, Jack Robinson.”

“I know that, Phryne.”

That brought her up short. He practically never called her that, outside of the bedroom.

“I know. And I’m sorry. I wish I could forget that night. I…” He groped for a word, his mouth working rather like a fish on a hook. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“What? That I’d intentionally invite you over while the man you vilely thought was my last plaything was still in the house?”

Jack grimaced. “That, yes. And I shouldn’t have mentioned French artists. That was unconscionable of me.”

“Well, it’s not as though there was only ever the _one_ French artist…” She sat back and took evil enjoyment from his squirming, which was the gentlest of the many punishments she had devised for him.


	124. Favours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve got you right where I want you.” (Phryne/Mac/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Phryne Fisher sat on the end of her bed, skin bare and fresh after her evening bath, watching her lovers dress for their respective evenings out and argue genially over who should have the privilege of escorting her out tonight. The final decision would rest with her, of course, but it was always fun to watch Jack and Mac spar over her favours. 

“It’s my turn, anyhow,” Jack insisted, threading his cufflinks. “I’ve got an awful boring police awards dinner to attend and I need her to help keep me awake.”

“Sorry, Jack, you have my sympathies, but I’ve got to spend untold hours at a charity gala for the hospital, which is going to be equally tedious, and I need Phryne on my arm to keep me from murdering anyone.”

“Well, at the very least, that would give _me_ something more interesting to do...”

Mac grinned and expertly straightened her bow tie. “And is it _my_ turn.”

“Uh, no, sorry,” Jack teased, and stole one of the hairpins from her severe bun.

“Uh, yes, sorry,” she retorted, catching his hand easily. 

Phryne rose smoothly from the bed and interposed herself between them. “Now, Jack,” she mock-scolded, “give that back, unless you want Mac to fulfill every existing stereotype about women with red hair.”

“God forbid.” He returned Mac’s hairpin with a cheeky grin and turned his attention to Phryne, who was very willing to be pulled into his arms. “So? What’s to be your pleasure tonight, Miss Fisher?”

“I’ve made my decision, and I’m afraid you’ll both just have to make do without me.” Phryne made her declaration in a very light and nonchalant way, for a woman who was currently naked and arching back against the man of her choice. “A quiet night in with a book and a brandy is just what I need. Besides, I can hardly go out on the town looking like this,” she teased, gesturing to her white throat, which was still encircled by a ring of reddish love-bites that Mac had given her the day before. 

Jack caressed her neck with gentle fingers and lips. “Not fair, Doctor,” he murmured. “You’ve left no space for me.”

Mac was unapologetic. “There’s more to Phryne Fisher than her neck.”

“True...” He dipped his head and pressed a promising kiss to each small smooth breast. “I shall bedeck these with jewels tonight.”

“Mmm, you are in a rare mood,” Phryne said, with a smolder in her voice, and running her fingers through Jack’s damp hair. “But I’m afraid it will have to wait. You have an awards dinner to get to.”


	125. Invigorating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “One more word out of you and I’m arresting you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack Robinson was, to put it mildly, not having the most enjoyable day on the job. “You sure you won’t take a chair, sir?” Constable Collins asked, not for the first time. “These interviews could take a while.”

“Yes, Collins, I’m sure.” Jack tried to smile at the young man, to take the edge off his terse words. “I just... feel like standing, that’s all.”

Hugh seemed unconvinced, but before he could say anything, the door to the grand house’s kitchen opened and in walked Phryne Fisher and her companion Dot. “Ah,” said Jack mildly, “I was wondering when you’d show up. Gaudy death in high society is rather more your line of country than mine.”

“Now, Jack, just because you lost at draughts last night is no reason to be a spoilsport.” Phryne sparkled at him. There was a wicked gleam lurking behind her friendly words, and suddenly Jack had a rather _vivid_ recollection of the night before. 

“I’m not,” he said shortly, refusing to let himself blush. “You, on the other hand, are a terrible winner.”

“I am utterly gracious in defeat,” Phryne corrected him. “I just don’t lose.” Hugh had courteously given Dot one of the two kitchen chairs, so Phryne perched herself defiantly on the table and smiled at the inspector. “Have a seat, Jack, and let’s get on with the interviews, shall we?”

“Oh, you can have the chair, Miss,” Hugh said, before Jack could open his mouth. “The Inspector prefers to stand.”

“Is that so...” It was brief, but there was a split-second expression of such delighted evil glee on Phryne’s face that Jack felt himself going weak at the knees. “I had no idea you found draughts so... _invigorating_ , Jack.”

He loomed over her. “I’d threaten to cuff you,” he growled, eyes dropping to her lips and especially to the gleam of white teeth in her smile, “but you wouldn’t take it as the warning it’s meant for.”

“Of course not, darling,” Phryne murmured, stroking his lapel briefly. “I’d take it as a challenge.”


	126. Bombardment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If we run, we might make it.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Phryne and Jack huddled close together inside the unsteady shell of the concrete bunker. Their suspect had lured them onto a military bombing range, and unless help arrived soon to call off the test... “We have two choices,” Phryne said, working hard to keep her calm even though it was almost pitch black inside the bunker, and she could feel Jack tensing with each passing moment. It was not his first bombardment... “Either we make a break for it, and try to outrun the explosions—”

“And possibly find ourselves easy targets for a trained ex-military sniper.”

“—or, we stay where we are, in this dubious shelter, and pray that we don’t suffer a direct hit.”

Jack’s face was a pale slash in the darkness. “I don’t like those odds, Phryne.”

“Neither do I, Jack.” She reached for him, found his face and his mouth with her fingers and followed them with her lips, and kissed him with every ounce of passion she could muster in the moments before her death. 

He responded with desperate eagerness, wrapping her in his arms and opening his mouth to her explorations. 

As the bombs began to fall about them, she felt Jack’s muscles quivering pathetically beneath her hands. He wanted so badly to run... “Stay with me,” she whispered. 

“I won’t leave you alone,” he promised, burying his mouth in her hair to muffle the frightened whimpers the endless explosions tore from his throat. 

And then, with a deafening silence that brought the past raging back to both of them, the shelling stopped. Their ears rang in the stillness. 

“We’re... alive,” said Jack wonderingly. 

Phryne let out a long sigh and slumped against him. “Yes.” She pressed a weary kiss to his cheek and was startled when he gathered her up and kissed her deeply. 

“I want you, Phryne,” he said, his voice husky and rushed and earnest. “Not now, after we’ve closed the case and we can go home... but I want to make love to you at the earliest possible moment.” His voice took on a quaver, the sound of a strong man pushed to his breaking point. “While I still have the chance.”

A hot feeling of joy rushed through Phryne’s veins. “And so you shall,” she promised, gripping his hand. “As soon as we’re able.”


	127. Demon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Have you been a good boy?” (Phryne/Jack/Mac & Ian) Requested by slimwhistler. Happy (early) birthday, my dear! ♥

Prudence Stanley and Jack Robinson sat in the waiting room of the women’s hospital. Prudence had wisely brought a book to occupy her time, although it had been some hours since she had turned a single page. Jack had more than enough to keep him busy, dealing as he was with eighteen-month-old Ian MacMillan, who was very annoyed at the long absence of ‘Auntie Fye’ and refusing to be placated with building blocks, picture books, or stuffed lions. 

“Da!” he demanded. “Da Da Da Da!”

“Yes, my son?” asked Jack, tired and worried but infinitely patient with his child. 

“Where Ma?”

“Your mother is working,” he said, for the sixth time that hour. 

“Where Auntie Fye?”

“Working,” said Jack. “Rather hard, I imagine.” He smiled at the boy and Ian was satisfied for the moment, but Prudence saw the strain around his eyes. 

“It will be all right, Inspector,” she assured him. 

“Of course.”

The door to the waiting room opened and all three looked up expectantly. “Ma!” Ian bellowed, and raced towards his long-awaited mother. 

Mac, who had taken the precaution of washing her hands very thoroughly before leaving the maternity ward, scooped up her son in one motion and hugged him tightly. “Hallo, Ian my laddie,” she greeted him. “Have you been a good boy for Dad and Aunt Pru?”

“No!” Ian shouted happily, and giggled. 

“Nonsense,” said Prudence, “he’s been exceptionally good.”

Mac sighed. “Jack, we’re raising a demon.” Then she smiled and took pity on her friends. “Congratulations, Jack. Again.”

Jack passed a hand over his face. For a second or two, he seemed to tremble under the weight of his relief. “Can we see her?” he asked finally.

“She’ll be furious if you don’t go and see her after all the hard work she’s done today.” Mac glanced at her son, who was trying hard to tug the stethoscope from around her neck. “Want to see Aunt Phryne, laddie?”

“Auntie Fye!” He bounced in his mother’s arms as she carried him down the corridor, with Jack and Prudence following quickly. 

Mac stopped at the doorway to Phryne’s room. “You go first, Inspector,” said Prudence, “we’ll wait.”

Jack inched inside the little hospital room, leaving the door open, so that Prudence and Ian could have their first glimpse of Phryne and Jack and their new baby son. 

“Tha’s a baby!” said Ian, in a tone of deep perplexity.

“Yes it is, little man,” Prudence said, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. “That’s Edward Arthur, your new baby brother.”

“...Ewart Arter?”

Mac chuckled. “I think we’re just going to call him Teddy.”


	128. Determination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How can you be so resentful?” (Rosie) Requested by firesign23.

The first time she met Phryne Fisher – socially – was at a charity supper being held by Mrs. Prudence Stanley. On the outside, it was difficult to picture wild, vibrant Miss Fisher as the maternal niece of the decorous and conventional and, well, prudent Mrs. Stanley. 

On the other hand, Rosie thought, watching the two women, there was a similarity there. It took her a few minutes of careful study to understand, but it dawned on her right as Mrs. Stanley was heartily and politely berating an errant society matron for her tight-fisted, unchristian way of always coming to such events and never leaving behind so much as a shilling, while at the same moment Miss Fisher was smiling vividly, talking vivaciously, and charming the wallet straight out of a smitten young stockbroker’s pocket. 

Determination. That was what they had in common. They were both hell-bent on getting what they wanted, whether it was money for a pet project or access to a murder investigation’s confidential evidence. And men. 

Oh, there had never been a breath of a stain on Mrs. Stanley’s character, none that Rosie knew of, and her late mother had kept a dignified ear out for all of Melbourne’s most salacious gossip. But the older generation well remembered how impoverished, plain, bulldog-ish Miss Prudence Morgan had somehow snagged the hand of wealthy mine-owner Edward Stanley, seven years her junior and utterly uninterested in marriage. She had wanted him, and she’d got him. Simple as that. 

And then of course, there was Miss Fisher’s… reputation. None of which Rosie had ever heard of her denying. 

It worried her, more than it ought. “Jack’s not your responsibility anymore,” her sister told her, repeatedly. “He’s a grown man and he can take care of himself. Seems to have done all right without you, these last few years. He’ll be fine.”

Phoebe meant well, Rosie knew. She’d liked Jack very much, more than she’d ever liked their father’s sleek charming godson Sidney Fletcher. But it wasn’t as easy as all that, not for Rosie. Jack had been a friend before he had been her lover, and she couldn’t help concerning herself with his well-being. 

_Not that he seems to need my concern,_ Rosie reflected, sipping her wine and finding herself surprised at how bitter it tasted. _He’s doing better without me than he ever did with._

She thought back to that day in his office, how unsurprised he had been by her engagement to Sidney and how calm he seemed to be. Truly calm, not the paper-thin layer of placidity he had tried to clothe himself in, after he came home from France. Gone were the humming nervous tension and the sullen black moods. Now there was a sense of true peace, of fortitude and latent power. It was the aspect of a man who didn’t dread the days to come, but who welcomed the challenges they would bring.

And it wounded Rosie to realize just how much it galled her, to know that some other woman had brought Jack back from the brink of despair, when all she could do was to walk away.


	129. Déjà Vu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is a really stupid idea and I blame you if we get caught.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack looked up at Phryne’s gorgeous silk-stockinged legs, disappearing over the ledge of a window, and shook his head in dismay. The French soldiers he’d known had a term for this sort of thing: déjà vu. 

Unable to remain on the darkened street, he followed her up the side of the building with equal efficiency, though perhaps with somewhat less grace. “Why is it,” he asked, climbing into their suspect’s apartment, “that whenever I’m in your company, I find myself breaking the law?”

“Because you’re easily led?” Phryne suggested blithely. “Or perhaps because you were meant to be an outlaw of the Wild West at heart…” She searched the walls as she teased him, looking for a slit in the wallpaper or a hinged painting, or anything else that might hint at a hidden safe. 

“Me? Miss Fisher, I am a perfectly law-abiding frontier sheriff,” Jack grumbled, crouching down to rub his gloved hands over the carpet and to feel alone the bottoms of the wall trim. “Just for that, if we get caught, I’m ratting you out immediately. And I want my badge back.”

Phryne stopped, and paused her search long enough to drop a kiss onto the back of his scalp. “If I apologize, may I keep the badge?”

“For putting me in yet another precarious position? Or for insulting my childhood integrity?”

“The latter. I was only joking, Jack. I’m very sorry.”

“…Yes, Miss Fisher, you may keep the badge.”


	130. Respect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t know you had it in you.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by the-illuminaughty-confirmed.
> 
> I love that someone’s asking for bi!Jack, and for Sam. He’s shown up in a couple of other chapters. ♥

Jack looked up from his book. “Come in.” Tall, rangy Sam Elsworth slid sideways into his private bedroom and shut the door quietly. “Should you be up and about so soon?”

“It was just a little upset, Jack. Nothing for you to worry about.” Sam smiled tiredly and looked about him. “Nice little space.”

Jack grinned, somewhat ruefully. “I spent so many nights here before Phryne and I were properly together, that it was just easier for her household if I had a room of my own. And now there are nights when Phryne’s away or I come home much too late, or if I just need time to myself but don’t want to go back to my house.”

Sam raised an eyebrow as he sat down beside Jack on the bed. “You’ve got a separate house?”

“Yes, from my first marriage. Well, my _only_ marriage… It’s very convenient, having a separate address. Makes both of us feel like we’re retaining our autonomy.” Jack shrugged and set down his book. “It’s more important to Phryne than it is to me. Then again, she’s the one with the cash. I’m just a poor overworked policeman with nothing a year and a pension to look forward to.”

“In other words,” Sam grinned, “you don’t want to be a kept man.” There was a tinge of sadness in his smile. “I know how you feel. It’s… rough, when you’re brought up thinking that it’s your job to be the breadwinner, and support your family, and then suddenly you’ve got to rely on your wife for everything.” He tapped his chest. “Before I took to writing, it was all Lili could do to keep the ranch running and _me_ running. We never had time for kids… And it’s partly why we decided not to bother too much over sticking to our marriage vows. For a long time, I wasn’t any good to her as a husband.” 

“You’ve stayed together, though,” Jack pointed out. “Is that all for show?”

“Not on your life. We got to be better friends while she was getting her needs met elsewhere then we could’ve been when we were only alone with each other all the time. We talked more… got to know each other more.”

“And that’s how… this…” Jack made a back-and-forth gesture between himself and Sam. “Came about.”

“More or less.”

“And it’s worked out for you.”

“Jack…” Sam’s abilities as a writer seemed to have failed him, for he struggled to find the words he wanted to say. “I’m married to the best and most generous and beautiful woman God ever put on this earth. I don’t need to say that to get in Lili’s good graces, or yours, or Phryne’s. She saved my life. She lets me be who I am and love who I need to love. I’d be a sorry excuse for a man if I didn’t give her the same courtesy. And that kind of respect… it’s a bond you can’t break.”

It was a bond that Jack knew very, very well. “That’s an awful lot of sentiment from a writer of sensational detective stories,” he teased, rubbing Sam’s arm comfortingly. “I had no idea you were capable of such eloquence, Sam. I thought you were just a hard-bitten old bastard who liked taking me to pieces.”

Sam smiled and leaned in for a kiss. “‘Man,’” he murmured knowingly, sliding his hands up into Jack’s hair, “‘is a giddy thing.’”


	131. Calm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Something happens to me when I hear your voice.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by bewItched.

“Don’t stop,” Phryne murmured, and without opening her eyes, she reached up to touch Jack’s lips. 

He chuckled and kissed her fingers. “I’m thrilled my reading appeals to you,” he said, very much amused, “but I have to be at the office tomorrow and it’s nearly eleven o’clock.”

“Mmm... much too early for sleeping.”

“Says the woman who’s nearly unconscious on my shoulder. Let me put the book down, Phryne. You don’t even like Westerns.”

She tightened her arm around his chest. “But I like the sound of your voice,” she said, tilting her head up to kiss the side of his neck. “It calms me.”

“In that case,” said Jack softly, brushing his lips over the top of her warm black hair, “perhaps I could read for a bit longer...”


	132. Modeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m glad we have an understanding.” (Jack & Mac) Requested by sheldonslog.

“Jack, I need a favour.” Detective-Inspector Robinson looked up at Dr. MacMillan’s abrupt request with a rather wary look. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s simply that whenever you or Miss Fisher says that to me, it usually puts my career in danger.”

Mac rolled her eyes. “I promise, it’s nothing that drastic. I need a specimen for my anatomy class.”

“...No one in the morgue striking your fancy?”

“Not particularly.”

“If you’re asking me to volunteer, Doctor, I’m afraid I’m not ready to donate my remains to science _quite_ yet...” 

“If that was what I was after, Inspector, you can be damned sure I wouldn’t be waiting for you to donate them.” Mac twisted the visitor’s chair round and straddled it, resting her arms on the high back. “What I actually need is a model. I’d like to make some sketches of the muscles of the thigh for my anatomy students—quadriceps, adductores, the femoral triangle and so on—and frankly I’ve yet to find any convenient cadavers with the type of definition I’m looking for. You, on the other hand,” she continued, “have a very admirable overall musculature, and as to that particular area—”

“I’m not sure I want to know how Miss Fisher related to you the details of that ‘particular area,’” said Jack, rather hastily. “So it’s an artistic model you’re looking for, rather than a dissecting one.” He toyed thoughtfully with his fountain pen. “And this modeling would require the removal of… how many clothes?”

Mac just grinned. 

Which was how that night Jack Robinson found himself standing naked in Phryne Fisher’s parlour, allowing himself to be turned this way and that and ferociously refusing to let his cheeks blush, while Dr. MacMillan sketched away (surely at far more than his thighs—how long did the shading of a muscle need to take?) and, he was sure, Miss Fisher peeked through the keyhole of the carefully closed French doors. 

“And precisely why couldn’t we do this at your rooms?” Jack demanded gruffly, wondering just why he needed to be in that particular position. “Or at my house?”

“Because people would talk.”

“And they won’t talk about this?!”

“No more than they already do, as we’re both here all the time as it is. Plus the light here is better. Now stop talking, you’re ruining my outline.”


	133. Valiant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I never much liked that hat anyway.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> A callback to an oldie but goodie – this particular hat was referenced in Chapter 7 of [The Domestic Lives of Detectives](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4520589/chapters/10559895).

Jack poured two whiskies and joined his wife in front of their parlour fire. “So, was Dot able to salvage your hat?”

“She gave it a valiant effort with steam and benzene, but personally I think it’s a lost cause.” Phryne sipped the mellow liquid appreciatively and leaned back against Jack’s chest. “She’s refusing to give up, though. Says she’ll try again tomorrow.”

“It’s an awful lot of work and fuss for a hat you could replace far more easily.”

Phryne glanced around to make doubly sure they were alone, and then whispered conspiratorially, “And that I don’t even particularly like all that much. Honestly, having a body fall into my car and crush my hat was probably the kindest thing that could have happened to it.”

“If that’s the way you look at it, then I’m very glad I didn’t buy you that hat,” said Jack, dry as a martini.

“Don’t be silly, darling.” She wriggled down so that she was lying with her head in his lap, and grinned up at him. “I don’t let you buy me things I don’t like.”


	134. Follow Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Fancy a drink?” (Phryne/Bert) For ladygrayluvs.

They’d gone into the Soviet Club an hour ago, knowing that their suspect could show up at any time. They each bought a beer (it would have been suspicious if Bert had paid for Phryne’s, or vice versa), sat among the downtrodden and the discontent, and they’d waited. And waited. And waited. 

Finally the tension got to Phryne. “One minute,” she muttered under her breath. “Follow me.” She rose from her rickety chair and disappeared behind the curtain that separated the bar from the back hallway that led to the dubious lav. 

Bert swallowed the rest of his beer, and waited a little longer. It would be just his luck to have the bastard turn up while they were in back… but it’d be Miss Fisher’s luck for him to dawdle until she was ready to tail him. He was of two minds about following her back there, but finally he did the only thing he could do. _I ain’t goin’ because she ordered me,_ he reminded himself, striding across the bare floorboards. _I’m goin’ because she needs back up._

He brushed aside the dark curtain and found himself with his arms full of Phryne, her mouth hot and demanding on his. “All set?” he gasped, pushing her up against a wall and sliding his hands up beneath her skirt to grip her ass. 

“Never better,” she said, deftly unbuttoning his fly and pulling him free, her hand glorious and warm on his cock and her voice the breathless laugh that always seemed to accompany their encounters. “Just—ohhh, yes,” she groaned as he sank into her. She was so wet he almost slid out again. Bert thought of her fingering herself while she waited for him, and lost all control.

It was the same as always, hard and fast and hungry in a place where they shouldn’t have been hiding, let alone fucking. Anyone could’ve walked in on them, caught them, recognized Phryne… but that made it all the better. She buried her shriek of completion in his neck, while he pounded into her and muffled his shout in her hair.

A few moments to catch their breath, and then they were apart again. Bert wiped himself with the handkerchief he’d started keeping for the purpose. Phryne shook out her skirt until it fell back into its original, relatively innocent lines, and peeked through the curtain. “And there’s our man,” she said, sounding rather pleased with herself. She turned round and then paused.

“What?” Bert demanded.

She swallowed a smile and shook her head. “I’m pleased you enjoyed yourself,” Phryne murmured, wiping the lipstick from Bert’s mouth, “but you’ll have to look a little less satisfied with life when we walk out there.”

“Could say the same about you,” Bert replied, as he admiring the wicked gleam in her green eyes. “You look like you’re on top’a the world.”

She pressed a finger to his lips and smirked. “Was, am, always will be. Let’s go.”

Bert picked up his hat and watched her disappear through the curtains. “Yes, ma’am,” he grinned.


	135. Company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It’s winter that's the hardest.” (Rosie and Phoebe) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Phoebe is my name for Rosie's sister, mentioned in canon in 1x06 "Raisins and Almonds".

Phoebe Merrill brought her younger sister a cup of tea and sat down beside her in the window seat. “It’s such a relief when the children are back at school,” she commented. “Between them and Bob...” She trailed off as she realized that she wasn’t saying anything new. Rosie had heard it all before. “What’s on your mind?” she asked. “Talk to me, dear.”

Rosie shrugged slightly. “There’s nothing much to tell,” she murmured. “Everything hurts. Thinking about Father hurts. Thinking about Sidney makes me sick. I’m glad Mother isn’t here to see this all happening.” She took a distracted sip of her tea. Outside, the winter rain sheeted against the window. “I miss Jack.”

“Rosie...” 

“I always miss him, in the winter.” Another sip of tea, this time concentrating on the warmth as it slid down her throat. “You know he was always out in his garden, when the weather was fine. At least when it was cold and miserable outside, we could keep each other company inside.” 

“‘Company.’ Oh yes. Two people living together and sharing meals and a bed and never saying two words to each other.”

“It was never that bad,” said Rosie truthfully. “We talked, we just... didn’t talk about the things we should have talked about. And Jack’s always been... very eloquent, in his silences. He was a quiet, steady presence, whenever I needed one. ”

Phoebe’s lips thinned. “You weren’t good for each other, Rosie. He’s a good man, I won’t ever deny that, but you can’t keep regretting that you left him.”

“I don’t,” said Rosie, wistfully truthful. “Still, sometimes... I do miss him.”


	136. Middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It is the latest thing.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Jack passed a hand over his hair—it was getting rather on the gray side now, but at least there was still plenty of it, which was both a blessing (as he was on the far side of forty these days) and a curse (he’d lost count years ago of the number of combs he’d broken in his thick tangle of hair)—and examined the new white-trimmed blue bathing suit. 

“Where’s the rest of it?” he asked, finally. 

“Jack!” Phryne put her hands on her hips and looked annoyed at him. “Is that really all you have to say?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” returned Jack, finding he very much did admire the cut of the new garment… pair of garments. “It’s a lovely colour, and I can see that _you_ like it and are going to wear it no matter what I say, as always. I just asked if there were any other pieces. Like something for the middle.” He gestured to Phryne’s exposed stomach, which was almost ( _almost_ ) as trim as when he had first seen it nearly ten years before. 

“ _No_. That’s the whole point of a two-piece suit!” She canted one hip at him and narrowed her eyes in a friendly challenge. “And don’t you dare start getting all moralistic on me, Jack Robinson. This is the height of modern swimwear, and besides, all you men are dashing about the beach now in nothing but shorts.”

“And you don’t mind it a bit,” Jack grinned. 

“Absolutely not. But if you can run around with your shirt off, letting all the jealous ladies of Melbourne realizing what they’re missing, this is the least that I should be allowed to get away with.” 

Jack tipped his head to one side, studying the new suit. He reached out and ran his hand over the fabric that covered her breasts, feeling the texture, then idly slipped his fingers beneath a narrow shoulder strap. It was a very loose-fitting strap, and slid down Phryne’s bare bicep quite easily. 

“ _Now_ do you like it?” she teased. 

“I liked it before,” said Jack mildly. “But I have to confess… now I like it a great deal better.”


	137. Whiplash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Mac looked like an Art Nouveau painting.” (Phryne/Mac) Requested by medeaofcolchis.

Mac looked like an Art Nouveau painting, Phryne thought fondly, gazing at her lover lying in the sun cascading over the bed, with her hair tumbling down over her breasts. Like one glorious whiplash of a paintbrush, one undulating, flowing line, transitioning effortlessly from pale skin to fiery red hair.

It was something she had always admired about Mac, how much of a chameleon she was, how well she blended into every setting like part of the natural scenery. She was more comfortable in her skin than anyone Phryne had ever known, including herself. Everything Phryne did was an act of defiance, a reaction to childhood poverty and societal constraints. Everything Mac did was simply… living. She would always be who she was, in hiding or in plain sight. 

Phryne loved that about her.


	138. Managing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Last one there is a rotten egg!” (Bert & Aunt Prudence) Requested by slimwhistler.

When Bert found Mrs. Stanley, she was in the kitchen, crying her eyes out over a basket of eggs. He hung back a bit in the doorway, wanting to give her space. When she finally realized she wasn’t alone, she immediately reached for a tea towel to dry her eyes, but she didn’t fuss about being spotted crying, the way she would have a week or two before. 

“Yes, Albert, what is it?”

“Miss Fisher’s in the drawing room wi’ the estate manager,” Bert said, his gruff voice as gentle as he knew how to make it. “They’re waiting for you to look over the plans for the new guest house.”

“Oh, yes, of… of course.” For a moment, Mrs. Stanley didn’t look as though she knew what to do next. Bert, for his part, didn’t think much of the idea of the guest house, a condition of that her surviving son had imposed if she wanted him to visit in the future. It was downright cruel, after losing Arthur, to make an old woman build an entirely new house just so her spoiled brat of a son would be willing to visit. But Bert knew better than to open his mouth about Mr. Guy, so instead he went into the kitchen and took the tea towel from the old woman, wrung it out under the cold kitchen tap and then handed it back to her.

“Here y’ go, ma’am. Touch yerself up a bit. No one’ll ever know.”

Mrs. Stanley managed a smile for him. “Thank you, Albert.” She dabbed her face with the damp cloth. “It’s such a foolish little thing, but Arthur, you know, he did love his breakfast eggs.”

“I remember,” Bert smiled. “Used t’ race him t’ see who could finish first.” 

She nodded and wiped her face once more with the damp cloth. “Well, I mustn’t keep Phryne and Mr. Edgarton waiting.” Mrs. Stanley paused on her way out, and touched Bert’s wrist briefly. “Thank you, Albert.”

“No worries, ma’am,” he smiled.


	139. Foolproof

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I know you’re a modern woman and I would never try to change you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Phryne lay awake with her arms curled around her pillow, her back and rump pressed snugly against Jack’s warm side, and staring at nothing in particular. There was no question of sleep. Her mind was too active. 

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re not sleeping?”

“Not a chance of it.”

Phryne rolled over and nudged her head beneath his chin, draping an arm over his chest and a leg over his thigh. “Tell me.”

“…It’s a very strange feeling,” Jack said after a moment, his voice low and rough. “Somehow… it seems unfair, somehow. Concetta’s just had a baby, Rosie’s married and pregnant, and I’m…” He raised a hand in the darkness and let it fall limply to the bed.

“Do you regret becoming involved with me?” Phryne asked, very quietly. 

His lips found her forehead. “Not for a moment.”

“Not even now that the doctor says you can actually father children?”

“No, Phryne.” He wrapped her in his arms and held her close. “I would never try to make you do anything, especially not this. My virility isn’t the issue. Your wishes are.”

She cupped a hand over his heart. “My whole life has been about doing whatever was necessary to secure my own freedom,” she murmured. “Things like commitment, marriage, children… it was all a barrier. A cage. I didn’t want those things because I saw what they did to women who had no other choice but to acquiesce to them. I suppose it never occurred to me that there could be women who would freely choose such things… or that there were men in the world who would let them.”

The sheets rustled gently as Jack sat up. “Phryne? Love… what are you saying?”

“That I was wrong. That commitment doesn’t have to mean a cage. That marriage, legal or assumed, doesn’t need to mean self-murder. And maybe there could be a place of some sort in our lives for children, if necessary.”

“Phryne…” Her name was barely a whisper on his lips, the touch of his fingers on her cheek, barely a breath. “I would never ask you to do that.”

“And I would never offer.” She laced her fingers with his and kissed his knuckles. “But if it were to happen by accident – and that’s always a possibility, these devices aren’t foolproof, and we’re not always as careful as we should be – in that case… well, I wouldn’t think getting pregnant was the end of the world, that’s all.”

“You’d want to keep it?”

“I can be a very jealous woman, Jack Robinson.” Phryne found his lips in the darkness and kissed him, and moved over him until she was firmly and inexorably in his lap. “I want to keep all of you.”


	140. Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Because I knew you would.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rithebard.

Phryne twisted her legs around Jack’s, effectively pinning him to the bed. “I want the truth, Jack,” she said, all mirth gone from her bright eyes and her flushed face. Unable to resist, he stretched out a hand and tucked a few wild strands of hair behind her ear, letting the backs of his fingers brush across her the lightly freckled skin of her cheek. “Why did you come halfway round the world to follow me to England?”

“I’ve already told you the truth,” he said, his lips tilting at their corners. “You asked me to. I love you. I missed you.”

“There’s no other reason?” She stretched her lithe body with the grace and flexibility of a cat, and like a cat, threatened to dig her nails into sensitive places unless she got an honest answer. “No case to be solved, no high-society murders that need my delicate touch? No heirs to be found in jolly old England?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Jack promised, eyes bold, arching lightly into her touch, daring her to rouse him again. “Though I’m sure we could find something of that kind to amuse us both. That is, if you’re bored with me already…”

She replied with a look in her eyes that made his heart stop, and licked her lips. 

Unable to refrain, Jack licked his lips as well. “Is it my turn to ask a question?”

She consented gracefully, gentling her touch a fraction. Jack was momentarily distracted by the warmth of her hand, and knew he wouldn’t last much longer. “Why… why did you ask me to…?” He sentence was lost in the midst of a low, helpless moan. 

Phryne laughed softly, kissing his throat as he panted for breath.


	141. Posterity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Damn you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> (This piece is thematically similar to a scene in Chapter 2 of Vacant Garments (and is just as angsty), but is actually related to [Chapter 77](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11351200) of this piece.)

Jack sat at the head of the dining room table, his hands in his lap. Sitting before him on the shining mahogany was a battered, much-traveled biscuit tin that Phryne had seen only once before. She knew it contained all the letters he had received during his posting in France. He had told her as much, though she’d never asked to look at them. Now his cousin wanted to photograph the letters, for posterity.

Phryne slipped into the corner chair beside him and folded her hands on the table. “I thought you might like some company.”

“There’s no need for you to be exposed to all the sad demons of my youth, Phryne.” He smiled briefly. “I just need to go through them to make sure that nothing too embarrassingly personal is enshrined in celluloid for eternity.”

“I won’t read any, if you’d prefer... though another set of eyes might help the task pass more quickly. But no one should be forced to rifle through their past alone.”

“…Damn you. I hate it when you’re the one talking sense.” But Jack opened the tin nevertheless.

Phryne touched his wrist briefly, and then reached for the first letter.

She had run away to war to escape her own demons, as well as a stifling and awful home life, and no one except Mac had known where she was during those years. 

Jack, as a young man, had not been nearly so alone in spirit. The letters from his parents were filled with love, pride, tenderness, and they had worked hard to conceal their worries from their soldier son, with middling success. There were brief mentions of money troubles, and comments about some of the neighborhood boys who had been blown to bits or returned maimed beyond recognition. Their fear that the same would happen to Jack was palpable. 

The letters from Rosie, Phryne wanted to leave alone. She had come to like and respect Rosie Sanderson, who had recently remarried, and any glimpse into the young, unsophisticated socialite that Jack’s ex-wife had been during the war gave her pangs of sorrow and sympathy. They had been so very in love, in a whirlwind of patriotic romance and duty and honor... It hurt too much. But the letters from Rosie were precisely the ones most likely to contain things that Jack would prefer not be passed down through history. So Phryne read in silence among the detritus of her Jack’s shattered past, until she came to a letter that left her numb.

It was not about either of his parents. It was a joyous letter from Rosie, dated two months after Jack had departed for the Front, announcing that he was to be a father.

Phryne read it twice, folded it carefully and set it aside. She cast a guilty look at Jack. His eyes flickered from her face to the folded letter and back. His jaw tightened briefly. After several awful moments, he flipped through the pile of papers he had already skimmed and extracted one letter, which he handed to Phryne without a word.

The letter was from Rosie’s father George Sanderson, dated six weeks after Rosie's ecstatic missive, writing to gently break the news to Jack that his wife had miscarried.

Never in her life had Phryne felt more guilty about intruding into someone’s privacy. Jack had always led her to believe that it was his injury that had prevented Rosie from conceiving. It had never occurred to Phryne that there might have been a brief moment of success before that.

After a time, Jack reached over and gently removed the page from Phryne's nerveless grasp. “I was never entirely sure,” he said, as though they were continuing a conversation, and in a way they were, “whether our childlessness was due to me or to Rosie. Her new husband seems to have sorted out that question very promptly.” He passed a hand over his face and then curled his fist before his mouth.

There was nothing for Phryne to say. Words would be meaningless. Her heart bled for him. It was all she could do.


	142. Appropriate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What is that supposed to mean?!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by balticprincess.

Jack shut the passenger door of his car with a tiny bit more force than was warranted, and narrowed his eyes at Phryne as he circled round to claim the driver’s seat. “I know _that_ look,” said Phryne, cheerfully dubious. “What did Aunt P say to get under your skin this time?”

He shut his own door curtly and slid her a sideways glance. There was a very tiny twinkle hiding in his eyes, so she at least knew he wasn’t truly upset. “She won’t stop referring to me as ‘your’ Detective-Inspector.”

“Is that all?” Phryne’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Well, aren’t you?”

“And just what do you mean by that, Miss Fisher?” he retorted, sitting up very straight. “In what way am I _your_ Detective-Inspector? I’ve worked very hard to maintain my reputation on the force, despite our frequent professional collaborations, so I’m hardly in your back pocket. Even if you had back pockets. Which…” He made an obvious pretense of eyeing what he could see of her backside. “You don’t appear to.”

“You’re welcome to do a more thorough investigation,” said Phryne, with a smirk. “But I promise, you being on the take was not what Aunt Prudence was referring to.” As he knew damned well. But Jack enjoyed these games as much as she did. “I think she was referring to something far more… unprofessional.” She ran a thoughtful hand down his arm and then down his thigh. “Something far more… intimate.” 

“Is that so?” Jack pursed his lovely lips and considered that for a moment or two. “I hope she wasn’t referring to anything _too_ intimate.” He traced a fingertip over the back of Phryne’s hand. She shivered, as he’d known she would, damn him. “That would hardly be appropriate.”

“My darling Detective-Inspector. If you don’t start the car this instant, references to inappropriate matters will be the least of your worries.”


	143. Lost in Translation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Fuck me.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“I should never have let you know,” Jack complained at eleven o’clock at night. “It was the biggest mistake of my life, letting you know I spoke German. Then I could’ve passed these documents off to someone who gets paid to translate dreck like this, and gone home to a hot shower and a bed, instead of staring at these papers until my eyeballs peel.”

“And probably never seen them again,” Phryne reminded him, leaning back and rubbing her sore neck, “once the military got wind of what’s in them, and then we can kiss our murder investigation goodbye.”

“How are you getting on with those French documents?”

“Not well,” she admitted. “Whoever wrote them was thinking in one language and translating into French as they went.”

“Another German?”

“I’m not sure… the structure’s more like Russian. Which would make sense, considering these.” Phryne picked up a third stack of letters.”

Jack dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, fuck me,” he growled. 

“Not now, Jack,” said Phryne without thinking, “we’re on duty.”

He was not amused. “Fuck _you_ ,” he growled.

 _That_ got her attention. She raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think you’d top?” 

They got no further forward with the translations that night.


	144. Decorum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Not exactly proper, is it, darling?” (Rosie/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“Your mother’s glaring at us,” Jack whispered out of the corner of his lips, grinning at his wife of six weeks, while his eyes were demurely fixed on his supper. 

Rosie, who had been paying half-attention to her father and brother’s discussion of the latest football match, and half-attention to the feeling of Jack’s calf pressed against hers under the table, darted a quick glance at her mother. “We must not be behaving properly enough,” she murmured around her glass, raised to her lips to hide her smile. “You know Mother’s very strict about decorum.”

Jack promptly dropped his napkin, excused himself politely to Mrs. Sanderson, and ducked down to retrieve it. The brief, hot touch of his lips against Rosie’s silk-stockinged ankle told her very neatly that there was nothing at all decorous or proper about his intentions towards her, after they went home. 

Her smile widened in expectation.


	145. Distractions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Shhhhh!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by afterdinnerminx.
> 
> I blame Sarahtoo’s [Down and Dirty](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4809062/chapters/11009348) for this one. *evil grin*

Phryne leaned forward to kiss Jack… just as the hallway telephone rang. “Oh, _damn_.”

“That’s why you have servants,” Jack murmured, pulling her the rest of the way forward. 

He had an excellent point, and Phryne was just getting into the rhythm of things when… “Excuse me, Miss,” said a very apologetic Mr. Butler, who was staring with extreme correctness at the proper picture above his employer’s fire place, and not at the disheveled picture she and her police inspector were making on the chaise, “but Mrs. Stanley is on the telephone. It’s about the soiree this evening.”

“Oh, for the love of…” Phryne clawed her hair into a semblance of order, rose in a huff, and shot a longing look at Jack. “Don’t move,” she ordered, and hurried into the hall. “Aunt Prudence, what could possibly be worrying you about the soiree at this late date?”

“And a good afternoon to you, too, dear,” Prudence said primly. 

“Sorry, Aunt P,” Phryne replied, trying to sound contrite and failing, as usual. “I was in the middle of something…” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack emerging from the parlour. Damn the man, couldn’t he follow the simplest directive? She distracted herself from her aunt’s last-minute plans by imagining how she might teach Jack to do as he was told. It wouldn’t work, of course, but they both enjoyed those little games of forfeit… 

He came up behind her and slid his hands over her hips, pulling her rump back against his groin. Her lips parted in a grin and she rubbed her bottom playfully against his erection. “No, of course,” she said to her aunt, grinning more widely as Jack nibbled the side of her neck, “of course, I understand, we’ll just have to hire in more chairs—no,” while Jack grabbed handfuls of her skirt, pulling it up and delving beneath it, “obviously the caterers are probably used to this sort of problem. We’ll—” 

His clever fingers traced her through her soaked silk underwear, and her breath caught sharply in her throat. 

“Phryne? Is everything all right?”

“Hmm? Oh yes, of course, Aunt!” Phryne grabbed his hand and shoved it down her knickers. She felt him chuckle against the side of her neck, and the vibration was exquisite. She loved it when he laughed against her skin, even more when he did it while he was using his tongue… “I’m just trying to get ready for this evening, and it’s—it’s proving rather a handful.” She switched the phone from her right hand to her left and pressed Jack’s wrist against her clit. His fingers stroked her and fucked her in just the right way to make her come hard and quick, while his other arm was wrapped about her waist, holding her upright, because they both knew she wouldn’t last much longer… 

“Ohhh look at the time!” Phryne exclaimed cheerfully, a little curtly because she was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming as she spasmed around Jack’s fingers. “Don’t worry, Aunt P, I’ll smooth over everything with the caterers and it will all be splendid tonight. I promise. Yes, I _promise_. I’ll see you this evening. Bye!” 

She slammed the receiver down and slumped against Jack’s chest. 

“You… utter bastard,” she panted, reaching a limp hand up to his face. 

Jack’s chuckle rumbled through her blood. “Something to think about during the party tonight,” he teased, kissing her temple. His wet fingers trailed lovingly over her thigh.


	146. Humble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “So now you know.” (Phryne & Mac) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Prudence left in a bit of an uncomfortable hurry, after she’d officially extended the hospital board’s offer of reinstatement and eaten a substantial slice of humble pie. “Not the most subtle comment you’ve ever made,” Mac pointed out dryly, exchanging her afternoon tea for a whiskey and soda. 

“Sometimes Aunt Prudence responds well to subtlety, sometimes to blunt force.” Phryne rolled her eyes fondly at her departed relation, and then focused her attention on Mac. There was something about her expression that made the doctor feel a bit naked. “You’ll tell me, I hope,” said Phryne, very gently, “if there’s anything I can do?”

“As opposed to last time?” Mac replied, with a little smile that was both wistful and bitter. “When I didn’t tell you at all?”

“Mac, darling, we’ve been telling each other secrets since I was ten and you were twelve. But this…” Phryne’s smile was lopsided. “You never needed to tell me about your feelings for women. You never needed to say a damned word.”

“Never thought I had to,” said Mac bravely, swallowing the lump in her throat.


	147. Consternation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There’s this girl I like and she likes me and I don’t know what to do.” (Jack & Jane) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack tapped gently at Jane’s open bedroom door. “I wanted to check in on you. You didn’t eat much, at supper.”

Jane shrugged. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“That sounds about as convincing coming out of you as it would out of me.” He leaned against the doorframe and folded his arm over his chest. “Something you’d like to talk about?” She shrugged again, more tightly this time. “Would you rather speak to Phryne?” Jack suggested gently. 

“…No, Uncle Jack.” She shut her book and wrapped her arms around her blanket-covered legs. “Do you remember last year, when the French ambassador brought his family to dinner?” Jack nodded. “Do you… remember how much I liked his daughter?”

“I do, yes,” said Jack, smiling. He came and sat down on the edge of Jane’s bed. “Is that something like what’s bothering you?”

She looked at him gratefully. “Something like.” 

“Another diplomat’s daughter? Or someone at school?”

“Someone I met while I was in France.” Jane toyed absently with the edges of her book’s pages. Glancing discreetly at it, Jack saw that there was a letter stuck between the pages. “She’s from Sydney.”

“Hmm,” said Jack. “Not nearly as far away as France.”

“No. She’s coming to study in Melbourne.” Jane swallowed, and blushed. “I-I think we’re going to be at the university together.”

“Sounds like it’s all working out for you, then.” He patted her shoulder. “I look forward to meeting her.”

“But… she’s a girl.”

“Janey. D’you really think that’s going to make a damned bit of difference to Miss Fisher, or to me?” 

“No,” said Jane, too quickly, and with a tell-tale brightness in her eyes that said clearly, yes, she had thought that. “But what should I _do_?”

Jack swallowed all of his paternal consternation at the thought of his little girl growing up so fast, and kissed the top of her head. “Tell her you can’t wait to see her again.”


	148. Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “All the pretty girls get cut in half while the sad clowns make us laugh.” (from the Plain White Ts' Cirque Dans le Rue) (Phryne & Samson) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

They sat in Samson’s tent after the show, catching up a bit. He’d been all over Australia since the last time they had met, and she’d been all over the world. “Did you ever thinking of leaving the circus?” Phryne asked, taking a small sip from the tin cup Sam handed her. It was the last of his good whiskey, hard stuff for a traveling entertainer to come by, and she wanted to do justice to the honour. 

Sam shrugged his massive shoulders. “Tried joining up in nineteen-fourteen. I was big for my age,” he added, his eyes crinkling at their corners. “Too big, as it turned out. I scared ‘em at the recruiting station. And then the doctor who looked me over said I wasn’t fit.”

“Not fit? You?”

“Said I had heart trouble. I do get short of breath, sometimes.” Sam shrugged again and took a swig from the bottle. “Other than that? Why would I leave, Phryne? This is my family. The circus… it’s been my home since I was ten. And I’d be no good on my own,” he added, grinning.

“I thought that about myself, once,” said Phryne, her green eyes subdued behind their heavy makeup. “I learned differently. Sometimes I think I’m better off by myself.”

“Nah. You’ve got to have something to care for. Someone.”

Outside, the last of the bright lights were being turned off for the night. “Every time I do that, I lose part of myself, Sam.” Janey… René… her parents… She downed the rest of her whiskey in one go. “One of these days, there’ll be nothing left of me, if I’m not careful.”


	149. Surprises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What do you mean, ‘it’s gone missing?’” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

“Well, you can’t have simply _lost_ it. Where did you see it last?”

“If I knew that, then it wouldn’t be lost.”

“Some detective you make… I’d have thought you would know that biscuit recipe by heart.”

“I do.” Jack pawed frantically through the recipe box he had brought from his house. “It’s the principle of the thing. Sentimental value. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Perhaps for the little list on the back?” Phryne suggested, all innocence.

Jack froze. Slowly, he glanced over his shoulder at her with an icy glare that had caused many a murder suspect to break down and confess on the spot, but Phryne Fisher was made of sterner stuff. She grinned. 

“And just how would you know about that list?” Jack demanded. 

She smirked and plucked a small, much-worn note card from her brassiere. “I must say, you’re getting very ambitious with your gift ideas, Jack. I’d love to have that first item for Christmas. Ooh, and the fourth item. And the fifth…”

Jack all but vaulted over the kitchen table to snatch the biscuit-recipe-and-shopping-list from her hand. “Not. Fair. Phryne,” he growled. Then in the face of her defiance, he grinned back. “Well, now that you’ve spoiled all my surprises, you’ll really have no idea what you’ll be getting for Christmas.” 

He kissed the tip of her nose and returned to his baking.


	150. Impromptu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Yes, mistress.” (Jack/Concetta) Requested by TheHonorableMrsMcCarthy.

Concetta clattered a stack of dishes into the big sink in Strano’s kitchen. “This is almost the last of them,” she told her impromptu helper. “And the last few customers are leaving now. We should be done soon.”

“Si, padrona,” said Jack Robinson dryly. 

She couldn’t help smiling at the picture he made, with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, an apron round his waist, and his arms buried to the elbows in soapy water. With her grandfather out of town, and Vincenzo sick with influenza, she needed all the help in the kitchen that she could get. She hadn’t intended for Jack to be one of those helpers… but she wasn’t sorry he was there. 

She rushed out onto the floor to collect the rest of the money and bid the last lingering patrons goodbye, and to send the other waitstaff home. Between the two of them, she and Jack could finish closing the restaurant… if only the man would pick up the pace a little.

“You’re not done yet, Gianni?” She nudged him with her hip to let her pass with the last of the dishes. “Rapidamente! I want to be done before dawn!”

“Si, si, padrona,” he grumbled. “If I ever had any fantasies about joining the restaurant business, today has stopped them in their tracks.” Jack groaned and picked up yet _another_ piece of serving china to dry. 

Concetta rolled her eyes fondly at his griping. “Don’t worry. I promised you I’d pay you for your help, and I will.”

“I hope so,” he shot back. “I don’t mind helping out a friend in a pinch, but I’m a hard-working policeman and need my sleep.”

“You’ve been so good about following orders in the kitchen, Gianni,” Concetta teased, the lightness of her voice not at all extending to the warmth of her dark eyes. “Maybe I should order you to join me in bed tonight.”

He froze in the act of drying the platter. For a moment, she worried he would be offended, and she opened her mouth to apologize, to make light of it as a jest. He looked at her for a long few seconds, emotions dancing across his angular face, his skin almost the colour of her own. Then he put down the platter and the dish towel and stepped close to her, with eyes as dark as storm clouds. “Si, padrona,” Jack rumbled softly, touching her cheek with gentle fingers.


	151. Jealous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I was wrong, before. You make everything easier for him.” (Rosie to Phryne) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

When Phryne invited Rosie Sanderson to lunch, it was with the firm directive to talk about something _besides_ Jack, if she could help it. Much as she wanted to know more about the private life of her favourite detective inspector, she realized it was indelicate and in bad taste to pump Jack’s ex-wife for that information. 

Besides, she was genuinely curious about what sort of person Rosie was, separate from the various men in her life. 

Over the lobster mayonnaise, she discovered that Rosie Sanderson was a reluctant social butterfly, nursed a guilty pleasure for detective stories, preferred the style of Art Nouveau to that of Art Deco, and was a passionate enthusiast of, unexpectedly, architecture. “To tell you the truth,” Rosie confessed, her eyes twinkling with surprising impishness, “I was jealous of you for owning this house.”

“Really?” Phryne laughed.

“Utterly and completely. I just adore the Italianate style, even if it is considered a trifle old-fashioned nowadays. It’s so clean and elegant, something… something beautiful and unattainable. In fact,” she added, with a little grin that Phryne would never had thought her capable of, “I was half tempted to tell you to take Jack and give me the house.”

Phryne returned the small, sly grin. It was a joke, of course, but it told her something she had been wondering about for a very long time.

Rosie must have felt the undercurrent of relieved curiosity, and addressed the elephant in the room. “I was wrong, before. About you making thing more difficult for Jack. He’s still one of the closest friends I have, and… well, I was wrong. You seem to have made everything easier for him.”

Her gaze was steady and her words sincere. She was a proud woman; it hurt to admit to a mistake, one in a long line of mistakes, but her own sense of honour and fairness compelled her to make the admission. It was a strength to respect. 

“It was the least I could do,” Phryne said, “after he helped me. And after I spent several months making things interesting for him,” she added dryly. Rosie laughed, as Phryne hoped she would. It gave Phryne a great deal of hope for the future of this friendship with Jack Robinson’s former wife. She rose from the table and indicated the hall.

“So – as an enthusiast of Italianate architecture – would you like to see the rest of the house?”


	152. Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “For every man who wants to rule the world, there’ll be a man who just wants to be free.” (lyric from Everybody's Gone To War by Nerina Pallot) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

“You’ve been very thoughtful today,” Phryne commented, handing Jack his tumbler and curling up in the parlour chair opposite him. “I don’t suppose that extra-furrowed expression has anything to do with Chief Inspector Doyle’s impending retirement?”

He rolled his eyes and accepted the whiskey with ill-concealed discomfort. “I suppose it was wishful thinking to hope that piece of gossip hadn’t reached your ears yet.”

“Jack, if you truly want the business of City South Police Station to be kept secret from me, you’ll have to send Hugh on a very long holiday.”

“Hmph. You’ll just find another constable to corrupt.”

“I’m not sure if Dot would be agreeable to that,” Phryne teased. Jack made an attempt at a smile. “Come on, Jack,” she wheedled gently. “What’s on your mind? Have you been offered the promotion?”

“Not yet, but it’s probably just a matter of time. Especially after I helped put Sanderson away. I impressed Russell Street, or so I’m told.” 

She waited for him to continue, but he only stared into the amber depths of his drink. “It doesn’t appeal to you?” she prodded. 

Slowly, Jack shook his head. “No,” he said, taking a deep breath and looking up at the ceiling. “Not in the slightest.” 

Phryne sipped her whiskey and waited, patiently this time. Eventually, she felt, he would unbend and tell her, or else he would change the subject. 

“Rosie once accused me, well, more than once, of a lack of ambition. She’s since rescinded the accusation,” he added, with a hint of his usual dry humour. 

“I’m very glad to hear it.”

Jack smiled, but his jaw was tense. “When I returned from France,” he began, “it was… an adjustment.”

Phryne didn’t say, “I know.” Of course she knew. They both did. 

“I was a senior constable when I enlisted. When I came back, I was handed a promotion to sergeant on the strength of my military service. It was the absolute last thing I wanted. I had command of men at Bullecourt, Phryne. Sending all of those men over the top…” He trailed off into a haunted silence. “It’s the sort of thing that can leave a man with a fear of responsibility. But I came back and they gave me a promotion and a pat on the back, and told me to forget it and get on with my life.

“Now they want to give me a promotion for putting my father-in-law behind bars, a job that’ll mean less fieldwork and more paperwork and more being liable for men’s lives.” Jack grimaced, a look more of pain than disgust, and knocked back his drink in one gulp. “I don’t think I can do it, Phryne,” he said, husky-voiced with exhaustion. “There are other good men for the job, men who’ll thrive on the paperwork and the politics. It’s not for me. I’ve got freedom where I am, to do my job, and to take on the dangerous cases myself when I need to, and send Collins home to his family. Chief Inspectors don’t have that luxury. No… no, if they offer it to me…” He trailed off and glanced at her. 

She read a thousand things in his eyes, bright in spite of the lowered light and the fire casting shadows everywhere. “You have to be where you can be free,” she agreed softly, reaching out and touching his wrist. At the gentle, understanding touch of her fingers, Jack’s eyes closed. The glitter of tears slipped from under his lashes. “We all do.”


	153. Fancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Put it down to temporary insanity.” (Jack/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> As usual, I would ask everyone to remember that this was a request, so no kink-shaming, please. :) If it’s not your ~~cup of tea~~ plate of carrots, that’s perfectly all right.

There was a place like it in every town, he’d found. Some hole in the wall that would cater to any kind of need, no questions asked, no names needed, where no one even knew who the real owner was.

Bert went there sometimes, when he was feeling especially out of sorts. He’d been going there a lot, since Tatiana had left, and a lot more after Miss Fisher left. Cab business was good and all, but Cec was busy with his wife, Dottie was busy with her husband, and with all his mates either dead or married, he was always at loose ends now.

It was never complicated. He’d go in, buy a drink, head to a particular corner where all the gents looking for his sort of company congregated. Sometimes he went to a different corner, in case there happened to be a sheila who liked the look of him. Mostly he went looking for a gent. Quick g’day, into the back for a blow or a bugger, and then out again, and no one would look twice. There were rooms upstairs, for people who wanted something more involved. Those cost money, though. Downstairs was included in the price of the drink.

He went there about a month after Dottie’s wedding. No particular reason, just feeling his age. Feeling alone. He wandered up to the bar and on his way, he spotted a set of shoulders he knew at first sight. They were draped in an unfamiliar hard-worked corduroy jacket, hunched over, with the jacket’s collar turned up, but Bert knew them, and the man attached to them. “Drink for that fella,” he told the bartender, and took his time making his way down. Bert sipped his beer and leaned on the bare wood of the bar.

“Fancy seein’ you in a place like this.”

Jack Robinson turned lonesome blue eyes to the cabbie, shrugged, and reached for the drink.

They stumbled into one of the small, dank little side rooms, pawing at each other almost angrily. Bert wasn’t sure what he was expecting from the cop but the desperation was familiar. Men like Robinson didn’t come to places like this on a whim. He shoved Bert up against the wall and kissed him with all his teeth. It was a hungry, hurting kind of kiss. “Feelin’ a bit crazy tonight?” Bert growled. “Or just feelin’ a bit lonesome wi’out Miss Fisher t’ run circles around ya?” 

Jack stopped suddenly. He planted both hands on either side of Bert’s head and stared at him hard for few seconds. “You too?”

His voice rasped down Bert’s spine, and something untwisted. “Miss ‘er like hell,” he admitted, smiling crookedly. 

The inspector blinked once or twice and seemed to see Bert clearly for the first time. “I shouldn’t be here,” Jack muttered after a moment. 

“What, think I’m likely t’ rat on ya? Miss Fisher’d have my knackers for earrings.”

Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair and grinned like a shark. “I don’t think they’d suit her.” He licked his lips thoughtfully, drawing Bert’s attention to the tip of his tongue. Maybe he’d even meant to do that. The bastard could be eye-catching, when he put his mind to it. 

“Why d’you always look at me like that?” Bert demanded.

“What’s always?”

“Since… well, since we first met! Back before anybody here’d ever heard of Phryne Fisher.”

“Christ… how many times did I butt heads with you and Cec during fights and workers’ protests?”

“Too damn many times to count,” said Bert, with a bit of a grin and a bit of a groan. The groan came out cheekier than he’d intended. Jack’s eyes darkened invitingly. “An’ every single time, you’d end up lookin’ at me like you wanted t’ take me by the shoulders and shake me til my brains rattled.”

“Maybe I did,” Jack rumbled. “Maybe I wanted to knock some sense into you before you got yourself or someone else killed through your misguided actions—actions, Johnson, not beliefs!” His eyes darkened further. “Maybe I just wanted to fuck you til your brains rattled. You ended up in my station’s lock-up _a lot_. I had plenty of opportunities to… think. Good-looking commo with big hands and cock-sucking lips… I did a lot of thinking about what I’d like to try with you.”

“If you’d tried any of that sooner, we’d’ve been better friends long before now,” Bert snorted.

This time he was ready when Jack’s mouth descended on his. “The miss is gonna be mad I got into yer trousers before she did,” he laughed, biting Jack’s lower lip.

That actually made Jack blush. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” he joked back, pressing Bert more firmly against the wall. “She’ll probably just want you to tell all.”


	154. Retaliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I am _not_ cute!” (Phryne/Mac) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Mac propped her chin on one work-worn hand and studied Phryne Fisher’s face. Even for sleep, it was much too innocent. She smothered a grin and brushed some strands of inky hair from Phryne’s forehead. 

“Mac, stop it,” Phryne scolded, her voice thick with drowsiness, even as she smiled and turned her cheek into Mac’s touch. “I’m tryin’a sleep.”

“It’s ten in the morning. Time to get up.”

“Time to _sleep_.” She pushed Mac’s hand away and pulled the satin bed covers over her head. 

Mac chuckled. “Damn but you’re cute when you’re half asleep.”

Phryne’s face reappeared, twisted into a pout of annoyance. “I hate that word.”

“Sorry. But it is accurate.”

Phryne scowled. “I. Am not. _Cute_!”

Mac slipped her hand under the sheets and poked Phryne in a very particular spot in her ribs. 

“Eep! Oh, damn you!” In retaliation, Phryne did a sort of jump-roll and landed squarely on top of Mac, pinning her hands at her sides. “That was mean.”

“Yes.” Mac kissed the tip of Phryne’s nose. “But effective.”


	155. Obliging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Hold on for dear life.” “No, just hold on to your handbag.” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

“Hold this,” Phryne said shortly, thrusting her velveteen purse into Bert’s hands and pushing him against a wall. 

“Now?” Bert laughed, half astonished at her bravado and all admiration at it. “In this grubby alley?”

“Yes. Here, now, before someone finds us.” Her fingers made quick work of his trousers and underpants. “Unless you object?”

He was already at more than half-mast. “No, ma’am.”

“Good.” Phryne did something beneath her skirt and then hitched it up. She put one hand on his shoulder, the opposite leg over his hip, and then hauled herself up and onto him by sheer muscle strength. “Oh _God_ ,” she sobbed in relief, sinking onto him, “I needed this.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard, grinding her hips savagely. “Stay right where you are, and hold on to me, please, for dear life. The last thing I want is to fall on my bare arse in this filthy place.”

“In that case, Miss…” Bert snaked one arm round her waist and grabbed one of her hands with the other, fumbling to fold the strap of the purse into her fingers. “You jus’ hold on t’ yer handbag.” He dug his shoulders into the wall and the fingers of both hands into her backside, and braced his feet on the cobbles. 

She rode him hard and fast, her mouth never leaving his for the whole brief time they were locked together, and tightened around him so abruptly and so viciously that it tore the orgasm from him and nearly made him lose his footing. “Christ,” he gasped, all his muscles shaking. 

“Mmhmm,” Phryne murmured. She pressed her forehead to his for a second or two, and let out huff of pleased, sated laughter. “You really are the most obliging man, Bert.”

“Don’t get mushy on me, Miss. I’m only obligin’ if you are.”

“Fair enough.” She kissed him once more, slid slickly from his cock, and adjusted her clothes. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t want to press our luck any further.”

Bert paused in the act of cleaning himself up. “Eh?”

Phryne grinned. “Well. Not this time.”


	156. Improvement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m good as gold.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rithebard.

Jack lingered well after the Christmas festivities were over, to Jane’s delight and Phryne’s… relief? Quiet pleasure? Gratitude, she decided, sipping one of Mr. Butler’s chilled cocktails. It had been years since she had spent December in the Antipodes and she was still getting reaccustomed to a climate that was the utter opposite of England at the same time of year, so the cold drink was much appreciated. 

Jack, though… Jack’s presence warmed her. 

“Thank you for coming,” she said, joining him in his contemplation of the tall, tall tree in her parlour.

“Thank you for inviting me,” he replied. “I haven’t had so much fun at Christmastime in years. Usually about this time of evening on Christmas Day, I’m the one manning the desk at the station.”

“I’m usually at my parents’ country house, suffering through the stuffiest of stuffy English parties,” said Phryne, shuddering slightly. “Dukes, earls, MPs, society ladies of the most boring stripe… This is a distinct improvement.”

Jack’s lips twitched. “What, the company of your servants, your adorable but barely-housebroken ward, your decidedly-not-housebroken commo friends, a puppyish police constable and a dour inspector?”

“As I said, a _distinct_ improvement!” His smile deepened at that, she was pleased to see. “You know, Jack, you’ve been here nearly all day, and you haven’t once asked if there’s a present for you.”

“I did get a present! Jane gave me a new tie. A lovely gold number.”

“I meant a present from me.” Phryne gestured with her cocktail glass. Jack followed the motion and saw a small red parcel nestled at the very top of the tree. “And as you’ve been a good boy…”

“Indeed I have. As good as gold, every year.” He reached up and plucked it from the branches easily. 

“I do hope you appreciate it,” she said, with a small smile. “It’s not something I’d give to just anyone.”

“That sounds foreboding,” Jack said, raising his eyebrow playfully. “Should I be afraid?”

“Only if you feel it necessary. I confess… it’s for my benefit as well as yours.”

Jack gave her a look of fond exasperation. He often had that look on his face. She rather liked it. She watched with pleasant anticipation as he untied the small oblong parcel and reveal a small brass ring with a set of keys. “And… these are…? I hope you haven’t bought me a house, Miss Fisher,” he teased. “I’ll have you know I’m above bribery.”

“I know you are. Utterly and completely. Those are the keys to my house.”

“To your—? To _this_ house?” He stared at her, gobsmacked and not a little suspicious. “Why?”

“Not for prurient interests, I promise.” _Although I wouldn’t object to that,_ Phryne admitted, very quietly, to herself. But that wasn’t the purpose and she wasn’t going to pretend it was. “Because I may need your help someday, in the middle of the night or when my staff are away. Because you may want to drop by for a late supper with Mr. Butler after I’ve gone out for the night. Because it might be required, at some point, for you to come here when the house is closed and find something.” She touched the keys lightly. “Front door. Back door.”

“And… this smaller one?”

“My boudoir.” His eyebrows climbed into his hairline. “I make enemies, Jack,” said Phryne quietly. “I attract trouble. And as I said… I wouldn’t give this kind of access to just anyone.”

“Hmm.” Jack contemplated the keys for a moment or two. “At the very least, it’ll save me the trouble of needing to break a door down or smash in a window.”

“Break my stained glass, Jack Robinson, and you might find yourself in a very uncomfortable position with that lovely new gold tie.” 

It was there and then gone, but an expression flashed through Jack’s eyes that hinted at how much he might not mind that. “Thank you, Miss Fisher,” he said, pocketing the keys. “I will keep these safe.”

_And me,_ Phryne thought, so quietly she almost didn’t hear herself.


	157. Sharp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not wearing any underwear.” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog. (PS this has got to be the least subtle GIMME PrOn PROMPT eva) 
> 
> Yes, Stef. Yes it is. So this is the least subtle fic ever. XD

“This ain’t fair,” Bert growled, jerking the steering wheel of his cab viciously as he careened through the streets of Melbourne, much to the disconcertion of other drivers. Phryne hummed loudly from the passenger’s seat beside him. She was slumped comfortably down on the bench, her eyes closed in blissful searching, and her dark red skirt was rucked up around her hips. The fingers of one hand were pressed inside her and the fingers of the other were stroking steadily at her clit. The strong tempting smell of her filled the cab and made it difficult for Bert to concentrate, to say the least. “How much longer?”

“Not… _mmm_ …” She bit down hard on her lower lip and arched her pelvis into her own touch. Bert couldn’t control a low whine. “Not much longer… Another sharp turn, please.”

If he stayed in the city any longer, he was going to be ticketed, and she’d be arrested for indecent exposure. Bert took a hard left onto a main artery (his boss moaned helplessly beside him) and sped out of the inner city, opening the throttle and gunning it for all he was worth. Phryne came with a cry that was barely drowned out by the sound of his engine.

He pulled the car into the first secluded vacant lot he could find, almost tipping the cab, he turned so sharply and suddenly. “Back seat,” he insisted hoarsely, unable to make it sound like anything other than a plea. Phryne held out her arms and he lifted her bodily into the back and then climbed after her, tearing at the front of his trousers. His cock was aching badly enough to bring tears to his eyes. 

“Ain’t fair,” he said again, plunging into her dripping cunt and exploding inside her in less than a minute. Bert dropped his forehead to her sternum, gasping for air. “Ain’t fair… next time, I don’t care, I’m makin’ Cec drive.”


	158. Vagrant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I found a cat, can I keep him?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

“Jack!” Phryne looked up from her breakfast eggs in delighted surprise. “What brings you here so early in the day?” She grinned brightly and pointed her loaded fork at him. “The pleasure of my company or the pleasure of Mr. Butler’s eggs Benedict?”

“Both and neither,” Jack said, relinquishing his hat to Mr. Butler but keeping his long coat, “although I won’t deny the appeal of either one.” His left hand was still in his trench coat pocket, and there seemed to be something moving in his pocket that was _not_ his hand. “I picked up a vagrant on my way to work, and as I can’t have him at the station, I was hoping you’d look after him for me until this evening.” 

He withdrew his hand from his pocket, revealing the tiny black head of a kitten with wondering green eyes the exact same shade as Phryne’s own. “Jack!” she exclaimed again, all but swooping down on him and relieving him of the kitten. “Wherever did you find him?”

“Skulking around my usual pie-cart. He didn’t seem to belong to anyone in the neighborhood, and as he was friendly enough, I just scooped him up and brought him along.” Jack’s lips twitched at their corners. Phryne was cuddling the tiny animal to her cheek in absolute rapt delight. Her inky hair brushed the kitten’s back and blended with its fur. “I had no idea you liked cats that much.”

“I have a special place in my heart for anything that cares that little for what others think of it. Listen to him purr!” There was a contented rolling sound emanating from the kitten that seemed much too loud for such a little thing. “We’ll get Dot to warm you up some milk, and we must think of a name for you…”

Phryne abandoned her breakfast and her guest and hurried to the kitchen, leaving Jack in the dining room with a bemused frown on his face. “But… I found him…”


	159. Daredevil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I think I’m going to need another one.” (Mac & Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Mac dropped debonairly into her desk chair, rested her feet on a pile of papers, and reached for a newspaper. “Heard from Phryne this morning,” she said, sipping her whiskey with a far-too-casual air. “The telegram came with the paper. Have you seen it?”

“I have.” He’d read it avidly while absorbing his morning tea and toast, only vaguely aware of the work accumulating on his desk. “‘Baron’s Daredevil Daughter Sets World Flying Record! Aviatrix Flies From Australia to England in Thirty Days.’” Jack’s smile was small and quiet and profound. He took a sip and then closed his eyes, thinking of the black-and-white photograph that had accompanied the article. “I’m just glad she’s safe.”

“I never doubted she’d make it,” said Mac, lying breezily. “Whether or not she’d get there without dropping her father over the side, that was the question.”

“Is she…” Jack licked his lips, remembering the airfield and the scent of grass and motor oil and Phryne, and debated within himself. Phryne had not sent _him_ word of her safe return, after all… but then, transcontinental wires were expensive, even for someone like Phryne Fisher, who didn’t need to set aside half a day’s pay for the privilege of sending one. “What did she say in her telegram?”

“Told me to spread the word she was alive and on the ground, and to ‘remind Jack.’” The doctor looked down her nose at the inspector. “And what exactly am I to remind Jack of, hmm?”

To his horror, Jack felt his cheeks beginning to burn. He shrugged and dropped his eyes to his whiskey, and made some awkward gesture with his hands. “She… asked me to go after her, Doctor.” He swallowed once or twice. “To England.” The truth was, until that very moment, he hadn’t been entirely certain _what_ Phryne’s enthusiastic command had meant. _“It’s a romantic overture. Come after me, Jack Robinson.”_ It might have just been her telling him to kiss her, damn it. But she wouldn’t be reminding him of that demand a month later if all she’d intended was a kiss, surely… “As if she thought I could forget.”

Mac stared at him, looking rather like someone had just dumped a bucket of cold water over her head. “She asked you to follow her to England.” Jack nodded. “…Right, I’m going to need something stronger for this.”

“For what?”

Mac shucked off her white lab coat and grabbed her tweed jacket and her hat. “Let’s go, Inspector. Lunch, my club, now.”

It was on the tip of Jack’s tongue to protest. He’d left Collins and Junior Detective Greely back at the station to deal with any routine matters. Len Greely had gotten the promotion that Collins had coveted, and without any real qualifications, and Jack wasn’t entirely sure if they could be trusted not to engage in fisticuffs in his absence. 

Then again, he _was_ hungry.


	160. Spiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What would you say if I told you that all I’ve thought about, is you since you’ve been gone?” (lyrics from We Can Try by Between The Trees) (Phryne/Mac) Requested by whiskeyandjack. ♥

Phryne’s room at the Windsor was, of course, insanely opulent. Mac couldn’t complain, since she wasn’t the one paying for it. And the size of the bed made up for any lingering financial scruples she’s inherited from her Scottish parents. She did enjoy the finer things in life, after all, even if she wasn’t always as capable of acquiring them as the Honourable Miss Fisher. Silk undies, good whiskey and tobacco, well-made shoes—those, she could justify. A suite at the Windsor was out of her reach. …Usually.

“I’ve missed you,” she was able to admit, after they’d spent the first few hours of Phryne’s return to Australia fucking like rabbits. “The Antipodes missed you desperately and so did I. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about you… or a night, for that matter.”

Phryne smiled a lazy, sated sort of smile and passed Mac her cigarettes and a lighter. Phryne, she knew from their correspondence, had given up smoking after a bad winter in Vienna, but she’d never lost the habit of carrying a lighter. It was the smile Mac remembered from their schoolgirl days, sly and nakedly pink. She’d spent all her lipstick in the insides of Mac’s thighs.

“You should travel more,” Phryne lamented, disdaining the plush pillows for the more pleasant surface of Mac’s chest, and rubbing her cheeks, cat-like, across Mac’s breasts. “You’ve hardly set foot outside Melbourne since the war. We could have taken Europe by storm.”

“We did that already,” Mac reminded her blandly, letting out a stream of expensive tobacco smoke. “It didn’t work out that well for either of us.” Phryne pouted. “Besides, not everyone has a fortune at their fingertips and families they’re trying to avoid… most people only have the later.” She regretted the words as soon as they slipped from her lips, and braced herself for a question about her mother. 

Instead, Phryne pushed herself up on her hands and looked down at Mac with a sorrowful, somehow absent expression. “Nothing’s the same anymore.” 

Mac snorted. “Nothing ever is.” _You can’t bring Janey back,_ she thought, echoing words she had said and written many times before, and would do so many times again, before this business was ended. _You can’t always mend the past, especially the parts that weren’t your fault._

She said nothing aloud, of course. And of course, as always, Phryne narrowed her eyes at her oldest friend and knew what she was thinking. 

“That’s no excuse not for trying, darling.”

Mac ran her fingers through Phryne’s black hair. “You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” she grumbled, as admiring as ever. 

Phryne leaned her forehead against Mac’s, kissing her softly. “There is no ‘giving up,’ Mac. There never is. There’s only fighting, and getting angry, and succeeding for the sake of spiting the universe.”

“It is a good motto,” Mac had to agree, smiling into Phryne’s kisses. “It’s worked for me all these years.”


	161. Scotland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I think we took a wrong turn and now we’re lost but I don’t care because I like spending time with you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> 100 words exactly! *\o/*

“We’re going in entirely the wrong direction,” Phryne declared blissfully, tucking her hand further under Jack’s arm. “The theater is a mile back the way we came.” 

“The map seems to disagree with you,” Jack replied, with surprising unconcern from a man so dedicated to order and punctuality. “We’re just taking the long way round.”

“Jack, I’ve spent a great deal of time in London, and I promise you, this ‘long way’ is going to take us to Scotland before it takes us to the theater.”

“Is that a problem?”

Her eyes laughed up at him. “Not at all, darling.”


	162. Always

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I will always love you.” (Rosie and Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

The words were on his lips when she told him she wanted a divorce. He couldn’t bring himself to say them, so Rosie said them instead. “I love you, Jack. I think I always will. But we can’t go on like this.”

They were on the tip of his tongue when she sat in his office three years later, after it was all over, and told him she was going to marry again. “I wish you all the best,” he said instead, and was glad to realize he meant every syllable of it, even if it wasn’t what he’d intended to say. 

They were whispered in her ear while she cried in his arms, in her ex-fiancé’s house, after Sanderson and Fletcher were behind bars. “We can’t be what we were,” he murmured, “and we shouldn’t try to go back.” Rosie clung to him, drained of tears and profoundly exhausted. “But I’m still here for you. I still love you. I always will.”

And they were spoken calmly, sincerely, with a smile and a kiss on her cheek, the day before Jack walked her up the aisle and gave her into the care of a man who could love her as much as – more than – he did.


	163. Superior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Why would you buy that?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rivendellrose.

Jack Robinson stood in the lane beside Phryne Fisher’s house, and stared in faintly jealous bemusement at her latest purchase. “It’s gorgeous,” he said, running a hand enviously over the custom leather of the motorcycle’s seat. “Brough Superior, isn’t it?”

Phryne nodded, beaming with pleasure at the new toy. “That’s right. A Brough Superior SS 100 with V twin engine. Guaranteed up to a hundred miles an hour, though said to be capable of even faster. Oh, don’t worry,” she added when Jack winced visibly. “It’s been years since I was on a motorcycle. I won’t be going that fast for a while.”

“For a very long time, I hope.”

“Well, at least not until I’ve had some lessons.” Silently, Jack prayed her instructor had nerves of steel. “Would you like to try it out?”

Oh, that was tempting. “Perhaps... just for a minute...” Jack gripped the handlebars lovingly. “Perfect,” he noted, swinging one leg over the machine, “just the shape I favour.” 

“I’m very glad to hear you say that. I wanted a shape as close to your racing bicycle as possible.”

He lifted a wary eyebrow. “And... why is that?”

Phryne’s grin somehow got even wider. “Because, Jack, my motorcycle is being delivered tomorrow. _This_ one is yours.”

“What?! I... Phryne. Why would you _do_ that?”

“I would’ve thought it was obvious. You know how to ride motorcycles, and I need you to teach me to ride mine, and since you can’t do that unless you have one of your own...”

Defeated by logic, Jack swallowed a long-suffering groan and prepared to have his nerves and his patience tested repeatedly over the next several weeks. _At least,_ he thought, resigning himself to his fate, _this is one gift the lads at the station can’t tease me over._


	164. Unorthodox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I give up. You win.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

“I give up,” Jack sighed, smiling as Phryne triumphantly jumped all the draughts pieces he had left on the board. “You win. And fair and square, for a change,” he added, toasting her with his glass. 

“Jack,” said Phryne, her eyes wide and innocent, “are you implying that I normally win by cheating?”

“Oh heaven forbid. ...But you do tend to employ some very unorthodox distractions, to make my mind wander from the game.”

Phryne crossed her arms defiantly. “Such as?”

“Well, like... rubbing your foot against my leg, under the table,” Jack said, thinking back to all the occasions when he had nearly forgotten all about the game. “And licking your lips _very_ intently while you’re pondering your next move...”

“Jack.”

“Hmm?”

Phryne smirked at him. “I think you’re just a sore loser.”


	165. Fault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“For the record, this is a terrible idea,” Jack murmured, in between tangling his hands into Phryne’s hair and kissing her mouth and her throat. 

She gasped out a laugh. “It wasn’t my idea, Jack!” She dragged her fingernails up his spine to feel him shudder against and inside her. “You’re the one who decided to keep a wool mattress rolled up in the bottom of your filing cabinet.” 

“True, true... Sometimes a man needs a cat nap when he works late.” He lowered his mouth to her breast. “But you’re the one who suggested we make use of it tonight.”

“But _you’re_ the – oh, darling... yes, just like that, _please_ Jack!” Phryne shoved her small fist into her mouth and muffled her agonized cry of ecstasy. 

Jack held her, shaking with the effort of controlling himself while she rode out her orgasm. “I’m what?” he asked hoarsely, when she could breathe again. 

Phryne buried her face in his throat. “You’re... the one who didn’t want to drive home in the rain.”


	166. Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Anything you say can and will be held against you... so only say my name.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Jack propelled the handcuffed Phryne Fisher before him and into the interrogation room.“Isn’t this taking things a little too far, Inspector?” she demanded coolly. 

He locked both doors securely. “I hardly think so, after the stunt you pulled.” Jack glanced at her over his shoulder, his blue eyes very dark. She met his gaze without flinching. After long moments of silence, she angled her head at him expectantly. 

“Well? Aren’t you going to get on with it?”

In an instant, Jack was behind her, bending her over the interrogation table, one hand dragging her skirt up over her naked rump, the other on the back of her neck, holding her down firmly. “I know better than to think anything I do will get you to confess,” he rumbled, his breath warm on her hair.

Phryne moaned. “Do your worst, Inspector,” she demanded, pushing back against his groin and rubbing enticingly against the hardness she found there. 

“As everyone else has gone home for the night, Miss Fisher,” Jack growled, clawing at his fly, “I plan to.”


	167. Spaniel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Well, that was strangely arousing.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Well done, Jack!” Phryne congratulated her partner in crime-detection, after he had wrestled their recalcitrant suspect to the ground and cuffed him securely. 

He glared at her with a combination of fondness and exasperation that Phryne had come to know well. “Thank you, Miss Fisher, although I do wish you wouldn’t express your congratulations to me in the same tone of voice as you would to an obedient spaniel.”

She suppressed a laugh as he straightened his hair and tie and tried to brush some of the grime off of his trousers. “I’d no more describe you as a dog than I would myself as a cat,” she teased, recalling all of the times when she had, indeed, described herself precisely in that fashion. “But if you don’t wish to be called ‘good boy,’ you might wish to take a little less pleasure in blood sport.”

“Eh?”

She dropped her eyes pointedly to his crotch, where there was a pronounced bulge in his trousers. “Feeling overly manly after that tussle in the dirt?”

Jack looked down and flushed. “I, uh…” He swiftly pulled the flaps of his trench coat closed. “In the heat of the moment, er…”

Phryne reached out and patted his shoulder. “Down, boy,” she smirked.


	168. Distracted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t think it would be this dangerous.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rivendellrose.

Jack shoved open his kitchen door viciously. Thick black smoke billowed out into the back garden. “Phryne,” he coughed, “where are you?”

“Here, over here.” He reached out blindly and found her sleeve, and hauled her out into the garden. “Well, that was unexpected,” she said, or tried to say, before a new wave of coughing overtook her. 

Jack dabbed her streaming eyes with his handkerchief. “Why is it that every time I let you into my house, you either rummage through my things or try to burn the place down?”

“It’s not—” _hack_ “—that I’m incapable of cooking—” _cough_ “—it’s just—” _hack_ “—I’m easily distracted.”

“So I’ve noticed,” said Jack dryly, hearing the bells of the fire wagon approaching.


	169. Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Seriously, THAT was your big plan?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“My sister disappeared when I was thirteen,” said Phryne softly. “Her name was Jane. We always called her Janey.”

Jack thought about the girl asleep upstairs, the one who shared Phryne’s sister’s name. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, reaching out to touch the back of her hand. It was meant as an impersonal gesture, a professional one, something he would have offered to any grieving family member who came into his office. 

Slowly, Phryne turned her hand over to grasp his fingers, tightly. In a moment, the impersonal vanished. “The man who took her… Murdoch Foyle…” The syllables were clearly familiar in her mouth, like the taste of bile, and hit Jack’s ears with soft revulsion. “He was convicted and imprisoned for trying to take another girl, but he never confessed to taking Janey. He still refuses to talk. We never…”

She moistened her lips slightly. Jack’s gaze was drawn, as it often was, to the motion of her lips, but now he felt no uneasiness. If he wanted to kiss her, as he often wished to, it was out of a simple desire to comfort her. “We never found out what happened to her.”

He stroked the back of her hand with the pad of his thumb. “Do you want me to reopen the case?”

Phryne looked at him with sad gratitude. “If I thought it would help. It was never a murder case, Jack. Just a disappearance.” She huffed out a laugh. “You know, when I was a child, I loved magic shows. I tried to learn everything I could about sleight-of-hand and trick boxes. At first, it was because I wanted to make my father disappear. He was a brute, and I thought we’d all be better off without him. After Janey… I wanted to find a way to make her reappear. And I _believed_ , Jack. I thought I could do it. I had a whole secret plan, to make my sister reappear out of thin air, and then we would run away together and never look back. We would start over…” She raised her free hand to wipe her eyes. 

“Children are resilient things,” he said softly. “You found a way to keep going.” He squeezed her hand. “You always do.”


	170. Slowly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You fell asleep in my car, I drove the whole time, but that’s okay I’ll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine.” (lyric from Tear in my Heart by Twenty One Pilots) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Phryne was dozing over a book in her cozy parlour, sleepily pondering how much energy it would take her to relocate to her bedroom versus how uncomfortable she would be in the morning if she let herself fall asleep in her chair, when the telephone rang. She listened for a few rings, waiting for Mr. Butler to get it, before remembering that he had already gone to bed. So she unfolded herself with a groan and wandered ungracefully into the foyer. “Hello?” she said, failing to sound at all interested. 

“Phryne, thank God.”

She was instantly, if not fully conscious, at least fully aware of the voice on the other end. “Jack? What’s happened?”

“Nothing dire, for once. But I… need a ride.”

“A what?” Phryne asked, feeling a smile curl onto her lips.

“A ride. I was checking up on some reported suspicious activity at the Franklin crime scene. Turned out to be a cat. But my car’s broken down and no one at the station is able to give me a lift.” She heard him let out a frustrated huff. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Miss Fisher, but if it’s at all possible… if Bert and Cec happen to be around…?”

“Nonsense, Jack. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” 

She hung up the phone on his protestations and ran upstairs to change.

He met her outside the Franklin house with an expression of extreme concern. “It’s a forty-five minute drive from St. Kilda.”

“Not at this time of night,” Phryne assured him. “Now get in. Shall I drive you back to my house?”

“No, thank you,” he said, sliding onto her luxurious leather coachwork with a sigh. 

“…Your house, then?” she asked, more gently. The pale light from the street lamp illuminated his tired face. He was unshaven, and there were circles beneath his eyes. It had clearly been a long day. 

“I have to get back to the station,” Jack said, with a tone of regret that told Phryne his day wasn’t over yet. 

“Right. Just lie back and relax, then.”

He snorted softly. “With you driving? Not likely.”

He closed his eyes, and within five minutes, was asleep with his head on her shoulder. 

Phryne took the long way back to City South, and drove uncharacteristically slowly.


	171. Peers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?” (Phryne/Bert) For ladygrayluvs.

Bert lay on his belly across Phryne’s bed with his chin pillowed on his arms, and watched Miss Fisher shed her outer layers. “Fancy,” he grunted, neither approving nor disapproving. 

She unpinned a brooch from her shoulder, a round of worked leaves and flowers in gold and pale green enamel, accented with amethysts, and laid it on her dressing table, glancing at him with a knowing smirk in her eye. “Not especially,” she demurred.

Bert snorted. 

Phryne unwrapped her silk scarf, purple and green waves on a soft black background, and smoothed out the wrinkles. Normally she would have simply tossed it aside, along with the rest of her clothing, and collapsed into bed for a night of restorative love-making. There were men who appreciated that careless, carefree attitude. Bert, though, was not such a man. He treated her clothes the same way he treated her – not with reverence, but with respect. She could do no less than her comrade friend, especially while he was watching her so closely. 

“Too fancy for my money. Too rich for me.”

Rising from her chair, Phryne knelt beside the bed and draped the scarf lightly around Bert’s neck. She brushed the silk against his cheek, and saw his eyelids flutter. “Silk is as suited to a good communist as to a peer of the realm, wouldn’t you say?” she murmured, with a soft smile. 

“Maybe.” He pushed back and sat up suddenly, as though wary of being burned. The expensive scarf hung down against his bare chest, and his hair was plastered against his head from his recent bath, making him look surprisingly like an American playboy Phryne had once known, briefly and intimately. “If I could afford it.”

Phryne climbed onto the bed and into his lap, black sleeveless gown and all. She cupped Bert’s cheek and kissed him, slowly, lacing her fingers behind his neck. “You perfectly well could,” she reminded him, “if you wanted to. I know how much I pay you.”

“Too much,” Bert said huskily. “Too much for driving an’ running errands.” He slid the straps from her shoulders with poignant gentleness, saying clearly without words what he thought, what he _still_ thought, Miss Fisher was paying him for.

She shook her head. “I pay you that much,” she said, wrapping her scarf gently about his throat, “because you deserve it. Because I don’t want anyone who works for me to ever want for anything. Because someday, you might want to buy silk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The brooch used in this story: <http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/135157212647/ladygrayluvs-gaslightgallows-ladygrayluvs>


	172. Camels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve always wanted to see Egypt.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rivendellrose.

“We don’t have to go straight home, you know,” Jack pointed out, tracing idle patterns with his fingertip on the pale plain of Phryne’s back, as they lay in her gargantuan hotel bed in London. “I took a long leave, after all. And my cousin’s looking after my house. If we were to finalize plans and leave now, we could travel properly.”

Phryne grinned into her pillow. “Together? How scandalous, Inspector.”

“I suppose if anyone asks, you could just tell them we’re married.”

“Ugh, no. I adore you, darling, but not even for you will I allow myself to be known as ‘Mrs. Robinson,’ even in jest.”

“Fine,” Jack retorted. “I’ll be Mr. Fisher. In jest, of course.”

Phryne snorted, but the sound ended in a little moan when Jack feathered a light kiss across the small of her back. “Where would you like to go?”

“Perhaps France… I think I’d like to see it from a civilian’s point of view. Or America,” he added, with a hint of embarrassment. 

“You are such a cowboy,” Phryne teased. A thought occurred to her. “There is… one place I’ve never managed to visit… that I think I should like to explore with you.”

“And where might that be?”

“…Egypt.”

Jack’s hands and lips on her body became inexpressibly gentle. “Are you sure?”

“Yes…” Phryne turned over and sat up with a determined expression on her face and the remnants of old pain in her eyes. “But I don’t think I could do it without you, Jack.”

He studied her for a moment or two, and then tipped his head in an imperceptible nod that filled her with relief. “If that’s what you want. Though I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to forget that Egypt ever existed.”

“It seems over-excessive to condemn an entire country and civilization to forgetfulness simply because of one woman’s tragedy. I’ve tried, in the past, to go, and could never bring myself to do it. It’s the last hold he has on me, Jack.”

“Ah. Well. In that case…” His lips turned up in a soft half-smile. “I’ll have to learn to ride a camel, then.”

Phryne smirked widely, while her eyes thanked him. “Not to worry, Jack. I can teach you. I learned in Baghdad.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Of course you did.”


	173. Dangling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “As much as I’m enjoying this, care to explain yourself?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Leaning out his car window, Jack pushed his hat brim up a bit to allow him a better view of the woman dangling from the sturdy tree. “Good morning!” he called out politely, working hard to keep a grin from his lean face. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes! Quite nice!” With some difficulty, Phryne Fisher removed her gloves and her flying goggles, and looked with mingled exasperation and delight at Jack’s unconcealed amusement over her predicament. “I suppose you want to know how I ended up in a tree, hanging from a flying corps parachute.”

“Eventually,” agreed Jack amiably. “For the moment, I’m rather enjoying myself.”


	174. Hash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You promised I’d what?” (Phryne & Aunt P) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Phryne could hardly believe her ears. “You told Guy and Isabella,” she repeated slowly, all the while fixing her aunt with a glare of utter dismay, “that they could stay with _me_ when they come to visit for Christmas.”

“Now don’t take that tone with me, Phryne,” Aunt Prudence chided, “I never said they _could_ stay with you. I merely said that unless they wished to reside in an hotel for the duration of their trip, they would either have to rent something or else stay with you. Of course I never assumed that Guy, liking his privacy, and Isabella, liking to spend money frivolously, would decide to rent an apartment or a house somewhere in the city, especially as Isabella is expecting.”

“Again?” Phryne’s jaw dropped. “That’s three in four years...” She shuddered, and shot Jack a grateful look over the luncheon table, yet again thankful that the subject of reproduction had never been raised between them but once, and that some years before, to make sure they were both content to remain childless. “Yes,” Prudence continued placidly, “I believe Isabella is hoping for a girl this time. I wish her more luck than I had, on that score.”

“I’ll have Dot light some candles for her in church. But that doesn’t help me in the slightest, if Guy expects me to host him and his brood through the summer.”

“You shall have to speak to Guy about that, I’m afraid.”

“But they’re already on the boat!”

Prudence shrugged her plump shoulders. “You know they’re perfectly welcome to stay with me, Phryne, but they refuse. And frankly, I’m too grateful to once again be on speaking terms with my son that I don’t want to push the matter. I’m afraid you’ll have to hash this out with Guy.”

Phryne dropped her head into her hands with a groan. “Jack, this is a nightmare in the making… what do you think?”

“That we’ll need to spruce up the guestrooms, I’m afraid. And that I’d like you to pass me the ham, please.”


	175. Convenience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It was quite a unique circumstance. I can't imagine it coming up again.” (Phryne/Samson) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Phryne hadn’t been scared of the dark in years. But being away from the lights and cyclic sounds of the city, of the cars driving by late at night and the clink of the milkmen in the early morning, made her nervous. She curled herself more tightly into Samson’s embrace. Sleeping with him had been the furthest thing possible from her mind when he had shown up at her door, but the combination of a familiar loved face and too-familiar painful memories had made finding comfort in his embrace all too necessary. 

In her childhood, the only light had come from candles, and a kerosene lamp that she had been forbidden to touch until she was ten. In her home in St. Kilda, all she had to do was reach out and press a button, and the darkness in any room would be instantly flooded with light. But here in Samson’s tent, there was none of that modern convenience or security. The only sound beyond the cloth walls was that of the mingled low grumbling and growling of half-tamed people and animals, the only light that of faint stars. Inside, all Phryne could hear was Samson’s gentle, peaceful snoring, and his heart thudding steadily beneath her ear as she lay on his chest. 

Her eyes groped for shapes in the darkness, and sometimes, she found them. 

“You don’t look like you slept a wink last night,” Samson commented, after she had kissed him awake a little before dawn. “Was I not to your liking?” Under his teasing, his voice was deep with concern for her.

“Sam, dear, you were wonderful. I… had some odd dreams. They kept me awake. I’ll be fine tonight.”


	176. Gratin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want to be alone tonight.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

It was four days before Christmas, the evening of the twenty-first of December, and Jack Robinson had long since stopped being surprised when his thoughts wandered to the absent Phryne Fisher. She had landed in England in October with much newspaper fanfare, stayed for a month – gritting her teeth the entire time, according to her letters – and then quietly slipped away at the beginning of November in her beloved Tiger Moth, which she had made the majority of her frantic flight in. 

He’d had telegrams from her since then. She was making her slow way back to Melbourne, avoiding the various winter and summer storms, depending on which hemisphere she was in, and stopping to visit with old friends on the way. Jack grimaced at the cold tea in his cup and wondered who she was spending her birthday with. He recalled her last birthday, and hoped very much that she was not spending the day alone.

His phone rang. “Inspector Robinson,” he answered, curtly official and hoping it wouldn’t be anything too complicated. Outré murder investigations had been far less to his taste, since Miss Fisher had flown away.

“Hallo, Jack.”

“...Phryne?” His heart skidded in his chest. “Where are you?”

“Home. Finally,” she added, with a sigh that spoke of bone-deep exhaustion. “I’ll be glad not to see the inside of an airplane for a very long time.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Jack said, smiling slightly and trying to contain the joy welling up inside him. “Welcome home.”

“Oh, thank you, Jack. Unfortunately, it seems as though I’m on my own tonight. Mr. Butler’s already left to be with his niece and her family for Christmas, and as Dot and Hugh have their own little nest now...” She trailed off for a moment or two. To Jack, it almost seemed as though she was hesitating. “Well, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming over.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. It’s... well, it’s very lonely here.” 

A lump began to form in Jack’s throat. “I’ll be right over.”

He decamped from the station in an unseemly hurry, barely tossing a goodbye to the constable on duty. His first thought was to drive straight to St. Kilda. A moment of reflection caused him to make a brief stop at his bungalow to fetch the cold chicken and gratin in his icebox. Dot had very kindly taught him to make the gratin, so it would be to Phryne’s liking. And then... 

“You are a sight for sore eyes,” Phryne said, drawing him into the dark Wardlow foyer and wrapping her arms around his neck to kiss him with luxurious unhurried slowness, as though they had all the time in the world. 

“So are you.” He held her at arm’s length for a moment. She looked exhausted and drawn from the constant traveling, and her hair was a little longer than he remembered, but her pale eyes were luminous and full of life and love. She was home. She had come back, alive and whole. There was all the time they needed. 

“Happy birthday, Phryne,” he murmured gruffly, hiding his tears in her hair.


	177. By Halves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by the-illuminaughty-confirmed.

Phryne tipped her head to one side, studying the back of Jack Robinson in the flesh and the front of him in the long mirror, as he stood in her bedroom in the (to her) wee hours of the morning and dressed for work. He had pulled on his trousers and tucked his undershirt into the waistband, and now was buttoning up his clean white shirt (carefully pressed by Mr. Butler). His braces hung loosely at his hips, much the same way they had the night before, after Phryne had pushed them eagerly from his shoulders. She grinned a little, and licked her lips at the memory.

“Licking your chops already, Miss Fisher?”

“Sorry, Jack, you know how insatiable I am.”

“I’ll just have to try harder to sate you next time.”

“Beautiful man, you don’t need to try.” A pleasant heat twisted and coiled in her belly. “I’m not the only one here who make hungry where they satisfy.”

To her surprise, she saw Jack’s clear, tanned face darken even further with an unmistakable blush. Phryne grinned broadly, even as the hot coil in her middle was joined by a fluttering of something softer. “Darling, surely you’re not going to be undone by a simple compliment.”

“By a simple compliment, no.” He stuffed his shirt into his trousers and adjusted his red braces neatly, before turning and favouring her with an expression of what Phryne could only call admiration. “But you never do anything by halves, do you?”

“You never pay me frivolous compliments, Jack. Why should I favour you with anything less than the truth?”

When he looked at her the way he was looking at her now, she practically melted inside. “I have to get to the station,” he murmured regretfully. “But I will thank you properly, later.”


	178. Or Else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That one’s from your wife, and this one’s from me.” (Jack/Sam) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

“Sam, dinner’s ready. …Sam. SAM!”

Sam Elsworth jumped a foot out of his desk chair and clutched at his chest. “Don’t _do_ that!” he said, with a wounded glare at the interloper now leaning in his study door and grinning devilishly. “What in hell do you want, Jack?” the writer grumbled. “I’m busy.”

“So Lillian warned me.” Jack pushed off the door frame and bent to press his lips to Sam’s. “That’s from your wife. She said to come down to dinner or else.”

Sam couldn’t help smiling. “Well, when she puts it like _that_ … and sends such a good-looking messenger boy, I guess I can condescend to grace the table with my presence. 

Jack rolled his eyes. “And _this_ ,” he said, cupping his hands behind Sam’s head, “is from me.”

For some moments, there was only silence. When they parted, Sam looked down and was surprised to see that Jack was now in his chair, and that he had somehow migrated to Jack’s lap. Jack’s very firm lap… “You sure we have to go to dinner?”

“Yes. Otherwise Lillian’ll have both of our heads.”

“Might not be so bad,” Sam grinned. 

“…After dinner.”


	179. Engrossed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Hello, Sailor.” (Bert/Phryne) Requested by sheldonslog.

Bert was already asleep by the time Phryne emerged from her bath. She wrapped her bare toweled body in her favourite embroidered black satin dressing gown and sat carefully on the bed beside him. His short blond hair stuck up a bit, apparently from when he had run his hand through it while engrossed in the book lying on his chest, tent-fashion, so as not to lose his page.

She smiled at the title. _Mr. Midshipman Easy_ , by Captain Frederick Marryat. It wasn’t out of her library, but it had a much-loved, much-handled quality that Phryne recognized. She’d had a copy of _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ like that, as a child.

Gently, she removed the book from Bert’s chest and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “Well, hello there, sailor,” she teased, smoothing his rumpled hair. 

He smiled a little, and without opening his eyes, sleepily reached for her. “Wanted t’ run away t’ sea when I was a kid. Still do, sometimes.”

“I know the feeling,” said Phryne, nuzzling her nose against his cheekbone.


	180. Precarious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I told you it’d be too much.” (Bert & Cec) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“It’s gonna be too much,” said Cec, looking at the tree worriedly. 

“It ain’t,” Bert retorted around his customary cigarette. “It’ll be a nice s’prise for yer missus when she gets back from ‘er mum’s.” He grabbed hold of the very top of the tree and, balanced precariously on top of the ladder, tied a rope around the crown and nailed the rope to the wall. He studied the placement of the Christmas tree and then, carefully, crept down. 

Cec looked at his best mate, then back at the tree. The wide dark green branches nearly filled the small parlour of the house he shared with his wife, spreading over the second-hand sofa and chairs and almost completely blocking the fireplace. Cec sighed. “Bert...”

“Uh... maybe we could take a few branches out before Alice comes home.”

“Just a few, yeah.”


	181. Unfit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There’s a time and a place for that, and this isn’t it.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

“Mmm... Phryne.”

“Yes, darling?”

“We should go upstairs.”

“Probably.”

“We’re rapidly becoming unfit to be seen in public.”

“We’re not in public, Jack. We’re inside. Under the Christmas tree.”

“Yes, under your aunt’s Christmas tree. And my waistcoat... and your stockings... are currently hanging from her light fixtures. We really should go upstairs.”

“Mmm... it’s hardly likely that Aunt Prudence is going to come back down tonight, especially not after the meal she imbibed.”

“But do you really want to risk... _oh..._ ”

Jack’s waistcoat and Phryne’s stockings were not alone on Prudence Stanley’s light fixtures for long.


	182. Ambiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “In for a penny...” (Jack/Bert/Phryne) Requested by Anonymous.
> 
> As always, this was a request, so no shaming. ;)

“I have something special for you,” Jack said without preamble, greeting Phryne as she breezed into the foyer after a night out on the town. 

“Oh really?” Phryne deposited her wrap and handbag on the hall dresser and turned to him with a sly smile. “Is this why you insisted you couldn’t come dancing with me tonight? And why you insisted that I had to come home at a decent hour, by myself and sober?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because otherwise I was going to be very upset at you demanding I curb my fun without you even being present.”

Jack emphatically did not smirk, and his eyes were hooded, but there was something about his posture and bearing that suddenly made Phryne go weak at the knees. “Come into the parlour, if you want one of your Christmas presents early.” He stepped back from the door and gestured for her to go inside. 

Someday, Phryne knew, her curiosity might well be the death of her. But as this was Jack, and Christmas Eve, she doubted it would be tonight. She put her chin up and sauntered into her parlour... and stopped dead in her tracks. 

A small fire crackled in the grate, giving ambiance without heating the room too overly much for the beginning of summer. The tall, elegantly-decorated tree in the window gleamed with ribbons and ornaments, and mysterious parcels beckoned to her from the floor and the window seat. And draped across her chaise lounge, naked and gilded in the firelight, with red ribbons bound around his thighs, his chest, and his noticeably needy erection, was a blond man with blunt features and smooth rounded muscles, one that Phryne knew very, very well. 

“Well hello Bert,” she drawled, surprised and highly amused. 

He glanced back at her, his expression a mix of tense arousal, bashfulness and boyish amusement. “G’day, miss,” he greeted her. “Happy Christmas.”

Phryne let out a little disbelieving laugh. “Is this my Christmas present or yours?” she asked, turning to Jack with a naughty smirk. 

“Well, both, I suppose,” Jack replied, leaning against the now-closed (and, Phryne suspected, locked) parlour doors. “But I do owe you a night with a pair of gentlemen, and since I was in the mood and Albert was free, and more than willing...” He dragged his thumb along his lower lip, eyes flicking over to Bert’s bare, prone, eagerly waiting body. It suddenly occurred to Phryne that he must have had to give Bert _reason_ to be hard enough to be wrapped in ribbon.

A slow smile spread across her face, and a slow warm dampness began to spread between her thighs. “‘More than willing,’ Bert?”

His compact shoulders shrugged easily. “In for a penny, miss, in for a pound. An’ it _is_ Christmas.”

“So it is.” She stooped to give him a searing kiss, then stood and drew Jack in for the same. “So, darling.”

“Yes?”

“Am I meant to unwrap this lovely gift?”

Jack’s eyes darkened almost to black. “Unless you’d like _me_ to unwrap him,” he said, his voice rumbling up from his chest. 

Phryne bit his lower lip softly. “Yes. With your teeth.”


	183. Judgment Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation... I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by the-illuminaughty-confirmed.

“Really, Phryne, this whole business has been entirely too… too…” Aunt Prudence was so overcome with emotion that she could hardly speak, so Inspector Robinson interjected.

“Sudden?”

“Outrageous!" Aunt Prudence exclaimed. “A secretive sea cruise – a clandestine elopement!” She glared in prudish irritation from her smiling, unrepentant niece to her new – as she supposed – nephew. “For heaven’s sake, the least you could have done was tell me about it!”

“Then it wouldn’t have been an elopement,” Phryne pointed out, mischief sparkling in her eyes in much the same way as light sparkled off the tiny, old-fashioned but perfectly elegant pearl-and-diamond setting on her left ring finger. “Would it, Aunt Prudence?”

Jack lifted his wine glass quickly to his lips to hide his sudden and very unprofessional grin.

“But what am I to tell the ladies at the Women’s Institute?” Prudence nearly wailed. “And the hospital board, and the church restoration committee? Dear God, the headmaster at Worley Grammar?”

“The truth, of course,” said Jack easily, with the smooth bland courtesy that masked either dry dismay or dry amusement, depending on whom he was speaking to. “That your niece, overcome by a moment of extreme conventionality, decided to yoke herself until Judgment Day to a steady and eminently respectable police inspector – who, by the by, is the only man in Australia willing to put up with her.”

Phryne rolled her eyes. “Jack, you don't _know_ that... And really, Aunt P, you’re always after me to marry and settle down, I thought you'd be glad that I was taking at least _some_ of your advice, for a change.”

That did seem to mollify Aunt Prudence somewhat, and she finally consented to actually sit down at the luncheon table. “And this isn’t some ridiculous passing folly? If you were to end up parading your foibles in the divorce courts, Phryne, I don't know how—”

Phryne prepared to act indignant, but before she could open her mouth, Jack was already speaking. “If that is an insinuation that I married your niece for her money, Mrs. Stanley, then you are woefully mistaken. I had many reasons, but money is not one of them. And as a man who has already been through the divorce courts once...” He glanced at Phryne. She gazed back with steady compassion. “It’s not an experience I wish to repeat. Whatever comes, we will meet, together.”

Poor upright Prudence was clearly overcome. “Well,” she said, touching her handkerchief to her eye, “you can’t say fairer than that. I shall write to your mother, dear Phryne, with a clear conscience.” Phryne looked none too pleased. “Now, Inspector – Jack – I suppose you and Phryne will be starting an establishment together, and that now she will be giving up this foolish detection business.”

“Aunt Prudence, really—”

“It’s no business for a woman, let alone a wife!”

“I wouldn’t dream of asking Phryne to give up either her home or her business,” said Jack, in such a supremely dry tone of voice that Phryne nearly choked on a fit of suppressed giggles. “Wife or no, the last thing I want is to lose the best private investigator in Melbourne!”

They took their leave of Aunt Prudence not long after that, having inflicted quite enough of their modern sensibilities. Phryne waited until they were out of sight of the house before pulling off the road, parking the Hispano, and leaning back on the leather seat for a long, long laugh.

“Oh, Jack, you were _magnificent_!”

“You,” he said fondly, “are a very bad influence.”


	184. First-Class

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Stop gloating!” (Mac & Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“She didn’t do it for her father, you know.” Mac made a forward sort of ‘over there’ gesture with her fork. “Flying to England. She didn’t do it for the baron. She did it for her mother.”

Jack must have looked as perplexed as he felt, because Mac let out a long-suffering sigh and laid down her cutlery. “Phryne likes to act the part of the Bright Young Thing, but you know as well as I do how seriously she takes anything she considers her responsibility. And how poorly she treats herself when she thinks she’s fallen down on the job.”

“I have noticed,” said Jack with feeling, “yes.”

“Between losing Janey all those years ago and assuming, as children do, that her father’s god-awful behavior was her fault, Phryne spent a long time trying to make it up to her mother.” A rueful smile flitted across Mac’s face. “Of course, she wasn’t especially good at being a dutiful daughter, not in the way she was expected to be. But she tried. And she’s still trying. If there’s something her mother wants or needs, Phryne will figure out a way to get it for her. And for _some reason_ , Margaret wanted Henry back.”

“So she brought him back. In the way that terrified him most.” A small but wicked smile curled across Jack’s lips. “God knows he deserved it.”

“She probably thought the same thing. She’s _long_ past trying to please Henry,” said Mac dryly. “If she wanted to please him, she’d’ve wired an explanation to her mother and then put Henry on the next boat to England. With guards.”

Jack snorted. “After everything he put Phryne through, I’d have shoved him into a box with air-holes, padlocked it, and shipped him via first-class mail.” Still, his smile widened into something admiring and proud. 

“Oh, don’t look so smug,” Mac said, rolling her eyes and returning to the dissection of her roast pheasant. “Just because now she’s your—”

“She’s not my anything, Doctor.”

“ _Please._ I’m not blind, Jack. And it’s not as if you and Phryne are masters of subtlety. If I were the matchmaking type, I’d have found a way to lock you two in a broom closet, just so you’d stop making sarcastic bedroom eyes at each other over my dissecting table. Thank god you seem to have beaten me to it.”

Jack blinked and suddenly became very interested in his filet mignon, and refused to admit that his cheeks were trying to turn red.


	185. Glow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You noticed that, too?” (Phryne & Concetta) Requested by slimwhistler.

Phryne had always heard that new mothers ‘glowed’, but frankly, she had never seen evidence of that. Her own mother had had several children, though only two of them had lived past infancy, and all Phryne recalled of her mother’s countenance after the births of her siblings was pallor and exhaustion, and later, grief. In later years, when some of her friends had married and procreated, Phryne had made it a point to keep away until the infants looked somewhat more human, and even Mac, who made weekly rounds in the women’s hospital’s maternity ward, had little to say that was in awe of new mothers’ appearances. 

But there was no other word for the expression on Concetta’s face as she nursed her two-week-old son: she did indeed glow. 

Jack was breathless. Quite literally, in fact, as he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. He clutched Phryne’s hand and devoured the boy with his eyes. 

Concetta glanced at Phryne, silently questioning. Phryne simply nodded. Yes, she knew. Knowing what she did of her history with Jack, it hadn’t been difficult to figure out. In return, she delicately indicated with her eyebrows in the direction of the kitchen, where Concetta’s husband of six months was preparing their evening meal. Concetta nodded. Yes, he knew. Everyone who needed to know, knew the truth. 

The baby apparently sated, Concetta closed the flap of her dress and readjusted the baby’s blanket. “Come here, Gianni,” she said softly. 

“I…” He looked at Phryne nervously. 

“Go on, Jack,” she smiled, giving him a little push. “Go say hello.”

He approached so hesitantly it almost broke Phryne’s heart with sweetness, and sat down on the sofa next to Concetta, so that he could see the child’s face. Concetta turned and kissed his cheek gently, whispering something in his ear that only he could hear.

And then without another word, she shifted the boy into Jack’s arms. His face was a picture of stunned surprise and alarm, even as his arms automatically shifted, like the experienced uncle he was, into the correct position to hold a newborn. “Oh…” His big hands dwarfed the tiny body.


	186. Crumbs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Fancy meeting you here!” (Rosie/? and Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> (Nico is borrowed with delighted permission from Sarah’s story [“Continuing Education”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5519474). ♥)

“Jack,” said Phryne calmly, not looking up from her coffee, “isn’t that Rosie, walking on the other side of the street?”

Jack glanced round with all his official caution. His fifteen-year-old son had no such scruples and stared openly. “Eyes on your food, Nico,” he said sternly, nudging the boy’s shoulder. 

“But Papa, who is the man she’s walking with?”

“A very good question,” Jack murmured, exchanging concerned glances with Phryne. Jack was still very close to his ex-wife, and Phryne considered her a friend, and they both wanted nothing more than for Rosie to simply be happy and safe. She was independent now, with a home and a career of her own and money that belonged to her, rather than to her father or fiance, and the last thing they wanted to see was for all of that to fall by the wayside because yet another man turned out to be something other than what Rosie Sanderson thought he was. 

“Much as I love mysteries in my professional life,” Phryne was saying, “I rather dislike them in my personal affairs.” She raised her fingers to her lips and let out a piercing whistle that made Nico laugh and Jack cringe. “Rosie!” Phryne waved enthusiastically, grinning like a maniac and entirely ignoring the fact that her partner was now slightly deaf. 

Jack turned back just in time to see Rosie blush at the attention. She whispered something into her tall companion’s ear, and when he grinned and nodded, they quickly crossed the street to the little cafe. “Well, this is a lovely surprise!” she said, and not merely out of politeness, if her broad smile and dancing eyes were any indication. “Darling, these are some very dear friends of mine.”

Jack and Nico both raised an identical eyebrow. Darling? 

Phryne rose and offered her hand to the gentleman. “Miss Phryne Fisher,” she said with a smile, not waiting for the formalities of introduction. She liked the look of this man, tall and slim with hair as black as her own, a ready smile and eyes as brown as a spaniel’s. “And Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson.” 

“Yes, Rosie’s told me about both of you,” said the slim man, offering Jack his hand. 

Jack clasped the proffered hand firmly, testing the grip. It was firm and confident, but there was none of the death-gripping he had come to expect from men who had something to prove. “And my son, Nicolas.” 

A look of surprised pleasure washed over the man’s face. “Rosie told me about you as well, young man,” he said, as Nico scrambled to his feet and brushed the biscuit crumbs from his jacket. “But she very sneakily didn’t tell me your name.”

“Oh?” said Nico, rather shyly, glancing at the women he knew at Aunt Rosie and wondering what was happening. 

“Yes.” The brown eyes crinkled at their corners. “You see, my name is Nicholas as well.”


	187. Racy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m in deep trouble.” (Jack & Phryne) Requested by babsmd.

“Miss Fisher,” said Jack, as soon as Mr. Butler had departed from the hall, “there’s something we need to discuss.”

“Make it quick, Jack,” said Phryne, checking her hair in the hall mirror. “We’re expected at the Crescent at seven-thirty, and if we’re even five minutes late we might get turned away at the door.”

“Even with an invitation?”

“The Crescent Club is very strict about timing. There’s a schedule to these events, after all. No one gets seated after the doors are closed.”

Jack caught her arm as she reached for her fox fur wrap. “Phryne. Five minutes. Please.”

She stilled at once. “All right,” she said quietly. Her keen eyes searched his face for some sign of what was troubling him. Jack realized rather ruefully that she was worried about him. “What is it?”

_What? Here?_ Jack looked around furtively, because although Mr. Butler had retreated and Miss Williams was nowhere in sight, he still felt… strangely naked. “Miss Fisher… Phryne… I don’t know if I can do this.”

She waited in silence for him to continue, a warm sort of pitying smile lurking in the corners of her mouth. She had expected this, he saw now. She had known this might happen and was giving him the chance to withdraw, honourably. No doubt she had three or four ‘old friends’ who she could call upon to fill his place at the club, an establishment of the highest discretion that was, as she put it, a place where couples in committed relationships go to find alternate partners for a night. It was also almost certainly where their murder suspect had gone to ground. 

_“I can find someone else to go... I’d rather it be you. But,” she hurried on, before Jack could comment, “I’ll understand entirely if you’re not comfortable with this idea, since if we don’t at least **appear** to have some sort of intimacy with each other, we’ll raise all sorts of suspicions in the other club members. No one’s expected to look for other lovers on a first visit.”_

_“When you say intimacy, you’re referring to... some sort of sexual act.”_

_“Or several, depending on the atmosphere.” Phryne grinned at him, but now her eyes were serious. Searching. “Would that be so terrible?”_

_“No.” The word dropped between them before he could catch it. All Jack could do was own that he had said it, and soldier on. “But this... isn’t how I’d prefer it to happen.”_

She would not think the less of him for bowing out at the last minute… Her very acceptance demanded that he explain.

“The idea of being with you… in a public place where we might – where we would – be required to simulate… intimacy… knowing that people are watching or even listening…” He stuttered to a halt, because Phryne had raised her hand to his cheek and her smooth warm palm was against his skin. The perfume on her wrist was overpowering, and made his head swim. At least, he tried to tell himself it was the perfume.

“Is it the idea of public intimacy in general that unnerves you?” she asked calmly. “Or is it the fact that it’s me?”

“Both,” Jack made himself say. His face had long since passed beyond the blushing stage. He felt clammy and detached from reality. Were they truly having this conversation? Her thumb stroked just beneath his lower lip, and his knees nearly buckled.

“You’re a very good actor, Jack,” Phryne murmured, with a hint of… regret? “Think of whatever happens tonight as nothing more than a scene from a very racy play. Whoever is watching will be no more than a theater audience, willing to be convinced. And it might not even come to that.”

The real problem, Jack thought miserably, as her hand dropped away, was that he couldn’t decide if that would be a good thing or not.


	188. Permission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That was unexpected but not unwelcome.” (Phryne & Rosie) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Picks up from [Chapter 113: Unbreakable](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11855750). Also, I apologize, I seem to have gotten onto a theme this week.

Phryne curled herself into the corner of a plush green Chesterfield in the library of her parents’ new London townhouse and regarded Rosie, the former and current Mrs. Robinson, with a curious air of sad friendliness. “It must have been a great comfort to you,” she said, “to have Jack back at such a difficult time.”

Rosie sipped the water the maid brought her, and waited until the girl had taken her leave and shut the door, before she answered. “Phryne, I didn’t travel halfway round the world to flaunt my remarriage in your face. I wanted Jack to come to you.”

“…I… I don’t—“

“Please, let me speak. The night… the night my father and Mr. Fletcher were arrested, Jack brought me to his house, so that I could collect myself. We made love that night, but I know the only reason he came back was because your aunt was in your house, so he couldn’t stay with you. He was prepared to,” Rosie added. “He didn’t… he didn’t want _me_ , Phryne. He wanted comfort, and so did I. That was all either of us intended.”

“…If you’ll forgive me, your intentions don’t seem to have borne themselves out.”

Rosie laid a hand over her abdomen. “No. The truth is, I don’t know whose baby this is. It could be Jack’s. It could also be Mr. Fletcher’s. Either way, I was in a dire situation.”

“And Jack offered to help.” Phryne’s smile was crooked but proud. “He always seems to need to do the right thing.”

“He does,” Rosie agreed, returning the smile. “But he didn’t offer. I _asked_ him. We tried to find another solution, but… there didn’t seem to be one. And I think the prospect of fatherhood might have swayed him, a little.”

“Very likely,” said Phryne softly. “He knew without asking that he wasn’t going to get that from me. But I’m sure that you two will be very happy together, now that you have a better... understanding of one another. A nice happy family.” She raised her glass in a regretful little toast. 

Rosie shook her head. “Phryne, it’s—it’s a marriage of convenience, nothing more. You and he can still be together—“

“I make it a policy never to dally with married men. Not even if their wives give permission.”

“Not even if it’s their wives’ express wish?” Rosie’s tone was calm, her manner cool, her words direct and clear. “Jack and I care for one another. I can see now that that is never going to change. But while we may be married in name – and yes, we might end up in bed together again – I can’t give him the kind of strength and support that he needs. The kind that _you_ give him, and that he gives you.”

“And that he gave you.”

“Yes. And I’m doing my damnedest to deserve it.” Pale blue eyes met green ones, and for several minutes there was nothing but silence between the two women. 

At last, Phryne spoke. “I’m willing to try… but I don’t see how it could possibly work, unless the two of us were to become proper friends.”

Rosie smiled, a real smile, not the distant polite things with which she had first met Phryne Fisher’s overtures of friendliness, and held out her hand. “I look forward to it immensely.”


	189. Cologne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “No words. Just hugs.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack.
> 
> Exactly 100 words! \o/

The parlour was warm, quiet, and dark. The last of the guests had gone, the last drops of the whiskey and champagne had long since been drunk. Phryne could smell the ghost of cocktails on Jack’s breath, overlaying what remained of his cologne. 

She inched closer as they sat together in the window seat. He put his arm round her shoulders, pulling her gently against him. Phryne curled her arm around his waist, nudged her head under his chin and sighed with contentment. His lips brushed over her hair.

In Jack’s lap, the fingers of their free hands tangled loosely.


	190. Prove Me Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You proved me wrong again.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by bewItched.
> 
> Another proper drabble of 100 words exactly! No dialogue tags in this one, so you get to decide who's speaking. ;)

“Every time I think I’ve got you figured out, you go and do something that proves me wrong.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Oh, no. No… not in the slightest. It just means I have to stay on my toes around you… keep my eyes open… always be on my guard…”

“…Always? Are you certain? Surely there could be _some_ moments when you could relax a little… just lay back and let things… happen…”

“Perhaps… but it would depend entirely on the circumstances. And the partner.”

“And if it were me?”

“I’d be very happily proven wrong over and over again.”


	191. Interesting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You didn’t have to take me quite so literally.” (Mac/Phryne) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Proper drabble #3! \o/ \o/ \o/

Phryne looked from Mac to the body on her carpet and back again. “While I appreciate the gesture, when I said I needed a new case to keep me busy, I didn’t expect you to supply one.”

“He's still breathing. He walked in here under his own power, whoever he is, and _then_ passed out.” Mac helped herself to a whiskey from the sideboard and greeted Phryne with a kiss before dropping into a chair. “I’m sure he’ll be very interesting, when he wakes up.”

“Mr. Butler!” Phryne called, rolling her eyes, “smelling salts, please! And some strong black coffee!”


	192. Patricide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’d like to lodge a complaint.” (Jack/Phryne) Requested by sheldonslog.

TEMPTED TO KILL FATHER –(STOP)– TALK ME OUT OF IT –(STOP)– NEXT LAYOVER BANGKOK

PHRYNE

It was an expensive way of venting her feelings, but it seemed to work. The next leg of the trip was uneventful, helped by her father’s nervous silence. 

To her surprise, there was an answer waiting for her at the air field in Bangkok.

NO PATRICIDE PLEASE –(STOP)– NO CONJUGAL VISITS IN PRISON

JACK

Phryne almost swallowed her tongue. She stared at the missive for a second or two, as a storm of emotions raged through her brain. Then she threw back her head and laughed.


	193. Disgrace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m very sorry, Mr. Robinson.” (Jack) Requested by Anonymous.

Jack stared at the prisoner for a moment or two, and then slowly took the seat that his ex-wife had just vacated. “George.”

“Jack.” The disgraced police commissioner narrowed his eyes at his former son-in-law. “You look like hell.”

“You’re keeping about that well.”

A ghost of a smile touched Sanderson’s lips. Jack felt sick. “I’m doing better than Fletcher, at any rate.”

Jack had nothing to say to that. 

“I heard Chief Inspector Gordon is leaving.”

“That’s right.”

“Were you offered the position?”

“I was. I turned it down.”

Sanderson let out a huff. “Haven’t heard as much about you since Phryne Fisher left town. What’s wrong, Jack? No good anymore without your high-class floozy?”

The warder stepped forward. “I’m sorry, sir, but your time is up.”

Jack stood up so quickly that he knocked the chair over. 

He left the prisoner without looking back.


	194. Dazzled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I never realized you could be so corny, darling.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rithebard.

A steady determined click of heels and the unmistakable scent of Jicky caused Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson and Constable Hugh Collins to look up simultaneously from their files. “Miss Fisher,” Jack greeted the abrupt arrival of his unofficial partner in crime-solving. “I expected you half an hour ago.”

“I said twenty minutes,” Hugh offered.

“Apologies for making you lose your bets, boys,” said Phryne glibly. She dropped her handbag onto the desk and turned a brilliant smile on Hugh Collins. The young constable, despite knowing full well how Miss Fisher operated, was dazzled into incoherence. “Hugh, I wonder if you might do me a favour. The Hispano’s in the shop, Bert and Cec are on a job on the other side of town, and I’ve left Dot back at the house positively _buried_ in baked goods for the church fête. Could you possibly take a car over and...?”

“Oh,” Hugh let out a huff of air and smiled, all in the same second, a habitual expression that only heightened his resemblance to a retriever dog. “Of course, I—” He cleared his throat hastily. “Um, that is... if that’s all right with you, sir?”

“Go on, Collins,” Jack said, waving his hand. “Go off and be Miss Williams’s knight errant.”

The boy grinned beatifically and departed, managing to trip over his feet only once in his hurry. 

Phryne speared Jack with an impish look. “Knight errant of the church biscuits? You hopeless romantic.”

Jack rolled his eyes but did not contradict her.


	195. Vagabond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You have the most magnificent ass.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo. Also for slimwhistler. ;)

He’d wired her that he would be in London to meet her in time for the New Year. Instead, he turned up at her flat two days before Christmas, dirty and disreputable-looking and utterly upsetting the maid, who tried to turn him away on the grounds that Miss Fisher was still in bed. Phryne had needed to come to his rescue, in a badly-tied green silk dressing gown that did absolutely nothing to disguise her essential nakedness. 

She gave the maid a five pound note and told her to take the rest of the day off. Then she drew Jack Robinson into the hall of her little flat, held his hands tightly, and drank him in with her eyes. 

His hair was a mess under a battered but still-recognizable fedora. His normal olive complexion had been darkened by the sun to a deep, warm tan. The arms that Phryne slid delighted, disbelieving hands up before clasping behind his neck were harder and wider than she remembered, as were the hands that he tangled into her sleep-wild hair, and his lean face was hidden behind a week’s growth of soft reddish-brown scruff. 

He had never looked more beautiful.

Phryne felt tears coming into her eyes, and that was just entirely unacceptable to her, so she distracted herself by deepening the kiss and slinking her hands down Jack’s chest and waist and around to grab his ass. She felt him chuckle against her lips and the sound went straight to her knees. When she finally broke the kiss and looked up at him, she thought that she might well be in love with him. That was how beautiful this vagabond of a detective inspector looked and felt, after four months without him.

Jack leaned his forehead against hers. His blue eyes were exhausted and inexpressibly tender. “Did you really ask me to come halfway round the world just so you could squeeze my bottom?”

Phryne chuckled softly, and led him to her bedroom. He’d need a bath before she would let him anywhere near her bed, but that had its own charms.


	196. Common

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I totally missed that oil slick.” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

Before meeting Miss Fisher, Bert had spent a good chunk of his evenings running through back alleys, with Cec or with Thommo and Ronnie, usually away from cops with billy clubs intent on bashing a few commos’ brains out. 

After meeting Miss Fisher… well, he still spent a lot of evenings in bank alleys. Sometimes running, though usually from crims rather than cops these days. Sometimes lurking. Sometimes banging his boss up against a brick wall. Whatever they did, he usually came home filthy. It was rare that Miss Fisher got the short end of the stick as well. 

They slunk into her kitchen at two in the morning, tired and grimy and reeking of motor oil. Even Bert, who spent his days in and out of a cab, though the smell was a bit much. “Told ya we shouldn’a gone down there.”

“You were right, Bert,” his boss groaned, dropping into a kitchen chair like a stone and working off her shoes. The low satin heels were covered in grease. Bert held the back door open and Miss Fisher chucked the shoes out in disgust. “I won’t even ask Dot to try.”

The rest of her fancy clothes weren’t much better. Neither were Bert’s, but his togs were used to common harsh laundry soap. Then’d turn out all right, after a good long soak. Speaking of a long soak… “If you think you’re going upstairs looking and smelling like that—” 

“Don’t worry, missus,” Bert threw back, half jeering and half hurt, “I won’t muck up yer fancy tub. I’m goin’ home.”

She caught his arm as he made to stalk out the door. “Don’t be silly, Bert. _I’m_ not going upstairs looking and smelling like this. There’s a perfectly nice shower-bath in the downstairs bathroom. And thankfully,” she added, with a hint of a naughty smile, “it’s just big enough for the two of us.”


	197. Foam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I am not a stray.” (Cec & Alice) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

“That’s it, luv,” Cec coaxed, taking Alice’s hand and putting his arm round her shoulders to help her out of the cab. “Easy goin’.” It wasn’t far from the curb to the door of Miss Fisher’s lovely home, but there were some steps to be overcome, and Alice was a bit shaky on her legs yet. The infection had left her very weak, and she was under strict orders from Dr. MacMillan to _rest_. But that didn’t help Alice earn any wages to give her mum to help with the little ones at home, or even let her work for her keep. She might go home for a little while, now that her... troubles... were taken care of.... but after that? What was she supposed to do?

But Dot was there at the door to meet her, all smiles, and so was Miss Fisher, who Dot was working for now. “Miss,” Alice began, “I don’t know how to...”

Miss Fisher simply smiled. “No thanks needed.”

_Very much a lady,_ Alice thought tiredly.

“Dr. MacMillan has released you into my care until you’re well enough to go home,” Miss Fisher explained. “So Dottie’s volunteered to take excellent care of you. And don’t worry,” she added, seeing how Alice looked worriedly at her escort, “Mr. Yates is welcome to visit whenever he likes.”

A flood of relief washed over Cec’s broad, honest face. “Thanks, miss,” he grinned, shoving his cap bashfully into his jacket pocket. 

Alice gladly let Dot lead her, slowly, up the fine stairs and into the most luxurious bedroom Alice had ever seen. It looked… decadent. Sinful, her mum would say, and look sideways at Miss Fisher’s wealth and her fine clothes and her kindness. But the bathtub was deep and the water was hot, and Alice gladly let Dot pin up her hair and then help her shed her borrowed dress and stockings, and slipped into the untold comfort of a hot bath. 

“The soap’s here,” Dot showed her, “and the flannel’s here. Is there anything else you need?”

“…Cec.”

Dot’s face coloured up. “Alice, I-I don’t think—” 

“Please.” She felt far more naked without him nearby than she did without any clothes on. “There’s something I’ve got to say to him.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“I don’t want to wait.”

“Um… well, there is the screen… oh!” Dot grabbed a cut glass jar and scooped out a handful of little white crystals, like salt. She sprinkled them in the water. “This should do it.” Alice watched in amusement as the salts foamed up like suds in a laundry tub. Soon she was entirely covered from view, right up to her chin. “You just relax. I’ll bring Mr. Yates up, if Miss Fisher says it’s all right.”

Miss Fisher clearly had no qualms, because in what seemed like less than a minute, there was a nervous little tap at the door. “A-alice?”

“Come in.”

He shuffled in, his eyes trained carefully on the floor. Alice warmed to him all over again. He’d been nothing but kind and gentle to her from the start. It was… different. It was nice. “Dottie’s just outside the door,” he said, sounding eager to reassure her. “She said you wanted t’ talk to me?”

“It’s… about you asking me to marry you. I wanted us to be alone.”

“…Oh.” The defeat in his voice went straight to her heart. 

She steeled herself. “I like you, Cec. A lot. You’ve been so… so kind to me, when you didn’t even know me. But that’s not enough to make a marriage on. I’m not…” Alice felt a lump come into her throat. “I don’t want to hurt you, Cec, not even a little bit, but I’ve got to think of myself. I’m not one of your stray dogs. I don’t need taking in, and I don’t need a husband who only feels sorry for me.”

“I know you don’t, luv,” he said softly. “So… that’s a ‘no,’ then?”

“It’s…” Alice swallowed and took a second to steady her heart. “It’s a ‘not just yet.’ I need time, Cec. To see if… if we’ll be good together.” 

Cec looked up, a bright hopeful expression on his face. Then he caught sight of Alice, just a head and a bunch of bubbles, blushed as red as an apple, and quickly looked back down at the fancy carpet. “Take all the time y’ need, luv,” he murmured, with a little tremor in his voice. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”


	198. Palette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Freckles…” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by askmetojumpoffacliff.

The first time he was close enough to Phryne’s bare skin to notice was immediately after her rescue from the Turkish bath house. Even with the dim light and through the steam and the melting cosmetics, he could see them, tiny little flecks against the otherwise flawless palette of her skin.

After that, every time she sashayed into his office wearing something slinky and sleeveless, every time he was near enough to her to see her skin under the foundation and powder on her face, his eyes instinctively sought out the freckles fashion said she needed to hide.

“I don’t like them,” she grumbled, long after, when they were lovers. “They’re childish.”

“They’re you,” Jack smiled, and set out to kiss each and every one of them.


	199. Advances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m through talking to you with better intentions.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by ireallylikeyoualot.

Phryne locked the parlour door firmly against any further intrusions, and turned to Jack with an expression of extreme sheepishness. “How’s the head?” 

“Throbbing,” he grunted, holding the india rubber bag full of ice against the back of his skull. “And swimming. And my nose feels like it’s on fire.”

“Smelling salts will do that.” She came and stood beside him, with her hand on his shoulder. “Thankfully you were only unconscious for a minute or two. Any longer and I would’ve had you carried up to my bedroom.”

He looked up at her in alarm. 

“To sleep, Jack,” she clarified. “I don’t make advances to men who can’t return them.”

That comment was rather more pointed than either of them had intended. “What about men who try and keep getting the runaround?” he retorted. “What about men who—who do their damnedest to not be boorish and traditional and then have cravat-wearing ‘houseguests’ dashed in their faces—?”

Phryne’s icy voice cut through his still-inebriated tirade before he could get properly warmed up. “Houseguests like my father?” 

“…Father.” The rubber bag slid unnoticed from his hand and clattered softly to the floor. “Miss Fisher, I…”

“Jack. I have my habits and my preferences, all of which are at this point in time precisely _none_ of your business. But let me make one thing perfectly clear: I would _never_ make advances to you lightly. I have not. I will not.”

His whiskey-and-nerve-tonic-soaked brain needed a few moments to parse that. “Never… made advances to me…?” Dear God, had he imagined _everything_?”

Phryne rolled her eyes and sighed, and ran her fingers through his tousled hair. The gentle touch sent shivers down his spine. “Never made them lightly.” 

She stooped to pick up the ice bag, and Jack mourned the loss of her touch. “You’re in no fit state to go home, and my guest room is solidly occupied. I wouldn’t inflict my father on a German POW, let alone on you.” 

He frowned up at her, still confused. 

“The only bed left in the house is mine.”

“Then where will you… oh.” His cheeks were suddenly warm with more than the alcohol. 

Phryne patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jack. We keep pajamas on hand for inebriated gentleman guests.”


	200. Calculations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Let me give you a proper welcome.” (Jack/Phryne) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> I'd originally had an entirely different prompt slated for this spot. Then I realized it was number 200, so I needed to do something a little more special. ;)

Jack’s telegram burned in its hiding place. The flimsy paper was tucked safely away in the bodice of her beaded silver ball gown, and she was still infuriated that she hadn’t been able to be at the dock to meet him, but a fantastic baronial row at breakfast at left her mother too stressed and emotional to appear in public, which left Phryne handling last-minute details for a lavish birthday ball at the estate in Somerset that she hadn’t wanted in the first place. She was beginning to wish her father actually _had_ sold the house off properly.

Meanwhile Jack, her Jack, was finally in England, and she wouldn’t see him until at least tomorrow. She’d given orders to the staff of her flat to pick Jack up at the docks and to give him every courtesy, while in the meantime she had to be polite and enchanting and listen to the flatteries of men she wasn’t at all interested in… She’d taken one or two lovers during her time in London, and neither of them had lived up to the thrill of even the touch of Jack’s fingers on her throat. 

_Oh, Phryne,_ she thought to herself as she listened to the housekeeper with half an ear. _You’re for it now._

It was halfway through the ball, just as things were starting to heat up and the professional dancers were taking the center of the floor to scare the cobwebs out of staid Somerset society, that the butler came up to Phryne with an expression of professional apology. “Excuse me, Miss,” he said, struggling to be heard over the increasing volume of the music, “but there is a gentleman at the door who insists that he was invited.”

“I’m not in the mood for gate-crashers tonight,” she sighed, lifting a well-earned glass of champagne to her lips. 

“Then should I turn him out, Miss? He seems quite the gentleman, though with an Australian accent, and says he’s traveled a very long way—”

The butler suddenly found himself holding a half-empty champagne flute. 

Phryne dashed through the ballroom and into the house’s grand entrance hall. A familiar figure in a hard-worked dress suit stood near the front door, looking surprisingly at home in the shabby opulence of her family’s ancestral home. She never said a word, but crossed the wide marble floor in three seconds and was in his arms. 

“Did you really think,” Jack said huskily, when they parted for breath, “that I would wait even a second longer to see you than I had to?”

“Your boat only docked this morning! How fast did you drive to get from Southampton to London to here, and toss in a bath and a change of clothes in the mix?”

He shuddered in her arms. “You do _not_ want to know.” Jack smiled the warm crooked smile she had missed so much. “Should we get you back to your birthday party?”

Phryne looked up at him with eyes shining wickedly, and calculated how long it would take them to get to the nearest unoccupied bedroom. “No.”


	201. Ice Creams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Your smile reminds me of the way we were.” (Jack & Rosie) Requested by sheldonslog.

“What is it?” Rosie asked, as they stood eating ice creams on the foreshore. Jack often took her out for a walk or a drive, to get her out of her sister’s house, now that there was no prospect of her leaving it anytime soon, and as it was summer, they tended to end their outings at the beach. She rarely swam herself, anymore, but the salt air was refreshing and revitalizing, two things she badly needed in her life. 

Jack turned and cocked his head at her like an inquisitive cattle-dog. “What is what?” he asked, smiling.

It was the smile that clinched it, she decided. The small half-smile of his lips and the deep amused contentment in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in years. It was familiar, and comforting, and she didn’t even care who had caused it, she was simply glad to see it back. 

“Oh, nothing,” she shrugged, and smiled in return. “You just look happy, that’s all.”

Jack took a deep breath of the clean ocean air and let it out slowly, appreciatively. “Not quite… but I’m definitely getting there.”


	202. Bull-Headed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What was she like?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by Anonymous.
> 
> This picks up after the end of [Vacant Garments](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4770074/chapters/10909787).

“Tell me about your sister,” Phryne said, as he drove her home from his cousin’s house. 

“Tell me about yours,” Jack replied, with a subdued smile. 

She’d known that was coming. “Janey was… like sunlight. She took after our father,” Phryne explained, “all tow-headed and blue eyes. She was clever in school, and cautious in games. With me charging bull-headed into everything, I’m not surprised. …She liked dolls, and stories about animals. Once she smuggled a flock of baby chicks into our bed. That was one time I _didn’t_ get in trouble for something Janey did,” said Phryne primly. “Mother knew precisely who had to wash those bedclothes the next day.”

Jack chuckled. “Did you often take the fall for something your little sister did?”

“Of course. Especially when my father was in his cups. I had to,” said Phryne simply. She turned and looked out the window for a while. In her mind, it was raining, but the night was clear and cool. “What about your sister? What’s she like?”

“I have no idea,” said Jack simply. “I haven’t spoken to her since nineteen-twenty-four. …She’s nothing like the child I knew, that’s for certain.” 

There was a hushed, choked quality to his voice that made Phryne drop the subject. She was too tired, anyway, to keep prying.


	203. Cosmos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You and me, a seedy bar that smells of old beer, and the stars.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by rivendellrose.

They were well outside the city, in a little farming town that consisted of a garage and a pub with a few rooms to let, investigating the disappearance of a young woman that _might_ have been a murder, but was looking more and more like she had eloped with a boyfriend. The spirits at the bar were volatile enough to make Jack look sideways at everyone in the pub, but they drew a good beer. 

They took their mugs out to the hill behind the pub. It was warm, the ground was half grass and half soft dust. Jack took off his trench coat and spread it for them to sit on. Phryne set down her beer and rolled happily in the grass while Jack looked on indulgently. 

There wasn’t much light to see by, but the stars were brilliant overhead. 

“I had some practice with a telescope, while I was away,” Phryne said, pillowing her hands behind her head and gazing up into the night sky as though trying to see home. “A scientist friend let me tour his observatory.”

“Oh?” Jack stretched out beside her, only mildly interested in the stars. “Did you find it interesting?”

“Extremely. But also frustrating. I got to see everything, but I couldn’t touch any of it or keep hold of it. It’s all moving farther and farther away… but I’ll be dust and gone before I ever notice it.” 

“I know something of that feeling,” Jack said, with a fond crooked smile. “But… we are all part of the cosmos, are we not?”

“Hmm… star stuff.”

“Why make an effort to keep hold of something that’s always going to be exactly where it’s always been?”

“Some might call that taking the cosmos for granted.”

“Perhaps. Others would say, it’s trusting in something that’s never let us down.”

Phryne looked at Jack and smiled, and took his breath away. There were stars in her eyes.


	204. Surabaya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You gave my constable a book of erotica.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by askmetojumpoffacliff.

ORIG DALY WATERS AIRFIELD NORTHERN TERRITORY AUSTRALIA                       16 SEP 1929

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JACK ROBINSON  
CITY SOUTH POLICE STATION DALY ST SOUTH MELBOURNE VICTORIA

HAVE ARRIVED SAFELY –(STOP)– GOOD RIDDANCE TO RUSTY PLANE FLYING BELOVED TIGER MOTH TO DARWIN AND BEYOND TMRW –(STOP)– FATHER IS TERRIFIED AND HOW ARE THE COLLINSES –(QUERY)– MISS YOU –(STOP)– SEND REPLY AHEAD TO HOTEL MAJAPAHIT SURABAYA

HON. PHRYNE FISHER                                                                                           7:43 PM

* * *

 

ORIG SOUTH MELBOURNE VICTORIA AUSTRALIA                                                 17 SEP 1929

THE HONOURABLE PHRYNE FISHER  
HOTEL MAJAPAHIT SURABAYA JAVA

THANK GOD –(STOP)– HE DESERVES IT –(STOP)– HAD HAPPY LETTER FROM DOT AND FURTIVE LETTER FROM HUGH ASKING TO FORWARD A PARCEL –(STOP)– WHY DID YOU GIVE MY CONSTABLE AN INDECENT BOOK –(QUERY)– FLY SAFE PHRYNE

DI JACK ROBINSON                                                                                              9:02 AM

 

* * *

 

ORIG RAFFLES HOTEL SINGAPORE                                                                      18 SEPT 1929

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JACK ROBINSON  
CITY SOUTH POLICE STATION DALY ST SOUTH MELBOURNE VICTORIA

BECAUSE HE NEEDED THE HELP

HON. PHRYNE FISHER                                                                                        12:12 AM

 

* * *

 

ORIG SOUTH MELBOURNE VICTORIA AUSTRALIA                                                18 SEP 1929

THE HONOURABLE PHRYNE FISHER  
RAFFLES HOTEL SINGAPORE

I SHOULD ARREST YOU FOR VIOLATING THE OBSCENE AND INDECENT PUBLICATIONS ACT

DI JACK ROBINSON                                                                                              9:30 AM

 

* * *

 

ORIG RAFFLES HOTEL SINGAPORE                                                                      18 SEPT 1929

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JACK ROBINSON  
CITY SOUTH POLICE STATION DALY ST SOUTH MELBOURNE VICTORIA

COME AFTER ME AND YOU ARE WELCOME TO TRY –(STOP)– SEND REPLY AHEAD TO TROCADERO HOTEL BANGKOK SIAM

HON. PHRYNE FISHER                                                                                        12:58 PM

 


	205. Surrogate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “May I present to you all the bride and groom.” (Rosie/? and Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> I decided to take that question mark literally. ;)

Rosie took a moment to examine her appearance in the powder room mirror before she went downstairs. Phryne had very graciously offered the use of her house for the small ceremony and reception. It was all Vicky wanted, an intimate wedding with her mother and close family and friends. 

A second face appeared in the mirror, in the open door behind you. “You all right?” asked Jack, his hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. His face was a little more lined than it had been (but so was hers), twenty-odd years ago, when she’d sat in his office at told him she was pregnant and didn’t know by whom, and his chestnut hair was gray at the temples (Rosie’s was still a rich brown, but she doubted that would last much longer. Phryne’s hair seemed determined to remain coal-black until the day she died), but the dry humour and tenderness were the same as ever. 

“Oh yes,” Rosie said, smiling away the happy tears that were threatening to fall and mar the smoothness of her face powder. “Just having a mother-of-the-bride moment.”

Jack smiled the crooked half-smile that meant the world. “I know the feeling. I’m having a bit of a father-of-the-bride moment myself, even if she’s not actually my kid.”

She was as close as Jack had ever gotten, Rosie knew, her and Phryne’s ward Jane, since they’d decided very firmly that there would be no children. With their disjointed hours and living quarters and Phryne’s determinedly avant-garde lifestyle, even as she approached her sixtieth year, that had definitely been the right decision for them. But it hadn’t stopped them from playing surrogate father and amazing adopted aunt to Rosie’s unexpected child, the product of a casual fling that she only didn’t regret because it had given her Victoria. 

“You are as far as Vicky’s concerned, and as far as her soon-to-be husband is concerned, and as far as their children will be concerned.”

“…God, don’t,” Jack groaned, going a bit pale at the thought of grandchildren. “Let me get through the wedding with a dry face, Rosie, please.”

She kissed his cheek fondly. “You won’t. Neither will I, or Phryne, for that matter.” Rosie gave her hair one last pat into place and then stepped out into the hallway. “Now, let’s go greet the bride and groom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sarah - please feel free to co-opt Victoria and the whole idea of Rosie as an unwed mother with Phryne and Jack as her parenting partners for a future Nico story. ♥


	206. Share

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I licked it, so it’s mine now.” (Phryne/Mac/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Phryne let out a gasp as Jack’s tongue traced a labyrinthine path over her right breast. “Mine,” he said, his voice husky and playful. 

“Fine.” Mac leaned over and licked a wide stripe from the base of Phryne’s left breast to her collarbone, making Phryne groan long and deep. “Mine.”

Jack scowled good-naturedly across the barrier of her torso. He dipped his head and slipped a hand beneath Phryne’s thigh, and dragged his tongue slowly up the line of her leg from hip to knee. “Mine.”

Mac narrowed her eyes, ducked her head, and proceeded to kiss and lick and dip her way from the top of Phryne’s ribcage all the way down to delicate bone of her left ankle. “Mine.”

Phryne laughed shallowly, one hand tangled in Jack’s hair and the other reaching down for Mac. “Play nicely, you two,” she warned. “Share.”

Jack and Mac looked at each other. “Well…”

“If you insist…”

To her delight, Phryne rapidly realized the dangerous potential of that command.


	207. Cold-Hearted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “No one will know.” (Dot & Neville Martin) Requested by babsmd.

Dot was sitting at the kitchen table with her cocoa and her embroidery as always, but wasn’t as relaxing as it usually was. It had been a tiresome day, what with the Baron going off again and the household being held hostage, and Constable Martin… Neville… She missed Hugh.

There was a tentative tap at the back door. Dot jumped up at once, her heart skipping several beats, _hoping_ it was Hugh… “Constable Martin,” she said in surprise.

“May I come in? Just for a few minutes, Miss Williams, I promise.”

She let him in, feeling very conscious of being in her dressing gown. 

“My request for an immediate transfer has been approved. I’m heading back to Wangaratta in the morning.” Neville smiled a little wryly. “I think Detective Inspector Robinson will be glad to see the back of me. I know I rubbed him in the wrong way.” His brown eyes were mournful. “Will you miss me, Dorothy?”

“Constable.”

He held out a beseeching hand. “I’m leaving in the morning. You’ll never hear from me again, I swear. But… if I could… one kiss? Please?”

Dot’s first ingrained instinct was to capitulate. He had turned out to be a nice enough young man, especially once she had put him in his place, and she did rather like him… even fancy him a tiny bit, thought it wasn’t at all proper for an engaged woman to think such a thing. And it was such a small thing, for someone she was never going to see again…

She didn’t move, but her mind did. Or her conscience. Whatever it was inside her, it straightened up abruptly in sudden determination. She didn’t want to kiss Neville Martin again, not even to make him happy. Not for anything. And the first person whose wants she needed to consider was herself. Followed, of course, by Miss Fisher, the Lord Almighty, and Hugh Collins, in that order.

She shook her head. “No, Constable Martin,” she said gently.

Neville nodded once, as though he had been expecting that, and took a fresh grip on the leather helmet he carried tucked beneath one arm. “Goodbye, Dorothy,” he said simply, and left as quickly as he could.

Dot shut the door gently, surprised that she didn’t feel cold-hearted. She turned round and saw Miss Fisher standing in the kitchen doorway, dressed for bed and looking very thoughtful. “Was that cruel of me, Miss?”

“Dear Dot,” her employer smiled, “you haven’t a cruel bone in your body.”

Dot pondered that. “I miss Hugh,” she admitted, though she knew that was no surprise to anyone. “And if he doesn’t come back, I may have just said goodbye to my only other chance of a husband.” She gnawed her lower lip for a second or two. “Miss? What if Hugh doesn’t come back?”

Miss Fisher put her hands on Dot’s shoulders. “Then you’ll just have to go after him.”


	208. Conspiracy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What are you two conspiring about?” (Jack & Phryne & Rosie) Requested by Anonymous.

Jack stopped short as he entered Miss Fisher’s parlor. Miss Fisher was perched on the edge of the lounge as if she’d jump up in a flurry of activity at any moment, while Rosie sat more primly on the wingback. However, her eyes still danced as she looked up at him while taking a measured sip of tea. “Good God,” Jack said. “What are you two conspiring about?”

Rosie looked at Phryne. Phryne looked at Rosie. Then they both looked up at Jack. “Nothing,” they said in unison.

“We’re not ‘conspiring’ at all, Jack,” Phryne said brightly. “Just… chatting.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I know that tone of voice,” he rumbled. “You’re hiding something from me.”

“Oh Jack, now really!” Rosie put down her tea cup with a prim little clatter. “And you accuse me of being suspicious! We’re just having a little talk over tea and some very lovely biscuits—did you make these?”

“Uh… no, Mr. Butler did. Those are too fancy for my skills.” Jack waited for the teasing to continue, but both Rosie and Phryne were looking at him with an expression of ‘Get the hell out now, please.’ “Well, um… enjoy your tea, I’ll just be, uh…” He gestured vaguely with his hat. “I’ll just go.”

_It can’t be about my birthday, that’s not for another eight months,_ he frowned to himself, as he mounted the stairs. _They’re probably talking about my bad habits… or how good I am in bed… no, definitely bad habits._

“Why on _earth_ did he automatically assume we were talking about him?” Rosie wondered.

“Well, men are frightfully insecure, even the best of them. He probably thought we were making fun of his manly attributes.”

Rosie rolled her eyes tolerantly at her former husband. “Now, you were staying, about the Megatherium Trust…”

“Oh! Yes, sell it. Every share, lock, stock, and barrel, before the bottom drops out. A friend of a friend in England assures me it won’t be long…”


	209. When Convenient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Come snuggle with me I’m cold.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by sheldonslog.

There were lips playing over the back of Jack’s neck, determined, insistent, clever lips. “I am trying to read,” Jack said, trying to hide his smile as he turned a page. 

“The book’ll still be there in the morning,” Sam murmured, nuzzling his nose into the soft short hairs at the nape of Jack’s neck. He tugged Jack’s collar down and laved his tongue lightly over the top vertebrate. “And the bed’s cold with just me.”

Jack groaned softly. “Go ask your wife,” he suggested, biting the inside of his cheek. “Or Phryne.”

“Mmm… lovely thought, Inspector, but they’re busy.”

“And I’m not?”

“Not busy enough.” Sam slid his hands over Jack’s shoulders and down his chest, rubbing his pectorals temptingly. “Come on. I’m a sick man, remember? I need to be kept warm…”

“You’re only sick when it’s convenient, Elsworth,” Jack grumbled, half-turning in his chair and tangling his fingers into Sam’s hair. “But I _suppose_ the book can wait… if you insist…”


	210. Last Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Stop. Wiggling!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Toss. Toss. Turn. Toss. 

Jack’s eyes snapped open in the darkness, seconds before he ended up on the bare wooden floorboards of the backwater inn room. “Phryne!” he hissed. 

Finally, she stopped moving. “Did I wake you?”

“No, because I haven’t gotten two seconds’ worth of sleep since you blew the lantern out.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She turned over on the narrow mattress again, and the motion inched Jack ever closer to falling of the bed. 

“Phryne! Stop it!”

“I’m sorry,” she snapped in a whisper, “but it is _roasting_ in here!”

“Fine!” Jack snatched up his pillow and rolled the rest of the way off the bed (it wasn’t far). “Now,” he said, making himself as comfortable as possible on the floor, “go to sleep, for god’s sake!”

For his part, Jack was asleep almost immediately. The war had trained him to sleep on just about any available surface, and he’d never lost the habit. 

He woke with the dawn (something else he’d never quite lost the habit of doing, more’s the pity), and grimaced slightly. His muscles ached from the night on the floor. He turned his head carefully, trying to stretch out his neck... and smiled at the sight that met his eyes from the other side of the bed. 

Phryne’s sleeping form, curled around a pillow, on the floor, snoring lightly, like a contented cat. 

Jack slid under the bed and came out the other side, cuddling up to Phryne and kissing her awake. “You just can’t bear to let me have the last word, can you.”


	211. Accents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Just one dance...” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by Anonymous, who wanted Phryne and Jack meeting during WWI.
> 
> And before anyone asks me to expand upon this idea, sorry, no can do. The very best take on 'Phryne and Jack meet during the war' has already been written: [Star-Crossed](http://archiveofourown.org/series/296303) by tisziny. Go read it!

“Come on, Jack,” his mate Lee Gibson had needled gently. “Come out for the night. There’s a dance on.”

Jack had protested. Reminded Gib he had a wife back in Melbourne, made angry noises about his clouted hip and how he was still limping, and finally insisted that he had to write a letter to his widowed mum. But Gib wasn’t having any of it. “No one’s asking to you take the girls to bed, and you’re not doing that leg of yours any favours by babying it, and the letter home can wait a night.”

So now Jack stood in a Parisian dance hall, the décor and the wine a little the worse for ware for the war, watching his army mates beau the French girls about, and missing Rosie and glad that she wasn’t there in the same breath. 

A very attractive girl was casting an appreciative look his way. Her loose dark hair reminded him of Rosie, but those green eyes were something else indeed... She wended her way through the crowd to his side, smiling. To his surprise, Jack felt his cheeks beginning to heat up. “Mademoiselle,” he said, trying to look like the jaunty Australian soldier that he had dreamed of being, although the dream had long since been drowned in mud and blood and the cream-of-man soup of the bombed-out trenches.

Her smile widened. “Your accent needs work,” she teased, in an English that was half posh London, half Collingwood. “Let’s stick to English, hmm?”

“Fine by me. I’m Jack.”

“Phryne.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Like the courtesan?”

“Ugh, yes.” She gave him another slow, appraising once-over. A nurse, he guessed, though her hair was unbound and she was dressed in a sleeveless blue dress instead of a nurse’s uniform. “Care to dance?”

“I... I’d love to, but I’ve got a bad hip.”

Her smile didn’t waver. “I know. I’ve been watching how you stand.” She took his hand. “Just one song. Something nice and slow.”

Jack let her draw him out onto the dance floor.


	212. Prelude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Jack, I’m trusting you with a secret.” (Writer’s Choice and Jack) Requested by babsmd.
> 
> A few people asked for more of the storyline from [205\. Surrogate](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/13162507), so here’s a little hint of backstory to that.

Seeing Rosie in the waiting area at the station was never a prelude to good things anymore, Jack reflected, as he ushered his former wife into his office. He closed the door securely and then, appalled at how pale she was, helped her to a chair. Her eyes were red-rimmed, either from crying or from lack of sleep, and his first instinctive thought was that something awful had befallen her sister. “What’s happened?” he asked quietly, bracing himself for the worst. 

“Jack, I...” She closed her eyes, collecting herself as her voice began to shake. “There was a man... It was just one night, but... I’m going to have a baby.

He felt the bottom drop out of his world for a second or two. Then common sense reasserted itself. He bent down and hugged her where she sat. “Everything will be fine,” he promised her, as she sobbed quietly into the shoulder of his suit jacket. 

After all the other times Rosie’s appearance at the station had heralded trouble, taken all in all, this wasn’t nearly so bad.


	213. The Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If you love me, you’ll do this for me.” (Phryne & Mac) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Mac looked up from her pathology notes and her fourth whiskey-and-soda. “How do you do it?” she demanded of Phryne. “All those clubs, all those boyfriends, all those dances and parties, and still manage to get halfway decent marks _and_ sneak into my lectures in a second-hand suit of men’s clothes?” She knocked back the drink and stood, a bit wobbly, to make her way to the decanters and the soda siphon. “Whereas I can’t even manage a simple chemistry exercise.” She leaned on the mahogany mantel, feeling dizzy. “Christ, I’m beginning to think this was all a mistake...”

The Honourable Phryne Fisher, sixteen years old and looking like a old illustration of Snow White with her pale skin and black hair, jerked the long vicious hat pins from her hair and dropped the elaborate headgear onto her mother’s favourite sofa. She stalked across the plush carpet of her parents’ parlour and, very gently, touched Mac’s shoulder. “I do all of those things because I need to, Mac. I would love to just curl up with a book and do nothing for an hour or two, but I _can’t_. I try, but I can’t concentrate, and I end up feeling like I’ll explode. So I have to be doing something, always. And since I have to always be doing something, I might as well try to be good at them.”

“I feel like that when I try to study without a drink. And when I have a drink. And when I’ve had too much to drink... bloody hell, Phryne, what’s my solution?”

“I don’t know, Mac, darling.”

Mac knocked her forehead once or twice against the wood, then straightened up suddenly. Her eyes were bleary but oddly determined. “I don’t want to just be good at what I do, Phryne,” she said, handing her the whiskey tumbler. “I want to be _the best_.”

Phryne smiled. “Then go to it.”


	214. Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Green is definitely not your best color.” (Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Sarah asked for more of single mom!Rosie, which takes place in her Nico-verse.

Rosie revealed her pregnancy to the rest of Jack’s family quietly, in Phryne’s sea-green parlour. Phryne and Jane’s eyes went immediately to Jack, and for a moment, Rosie felt a flare of anger on her former husband’s behalf. Did they really think that he…?

“Yes,” said Jack quietly, “she told me already, at the station.”

That was it. That was all they had wanted confirmation of. Phryne and Jane were both set at ease and at once began to offer their assistance and their support. Rosie tried to hide her embarrassed flush in a cup of weak tea, and suddenly she had a vivid memory of her late mother, scolding her for being angry with her sister in public.

_“You don’t wear green well,”_ Rosie heard her mother’s voice in her head. _“If you must feel envy or jealousy, Rosemary, be sure to keep it hidden, because your face is too honest and everyone will know.”_

That had always been her trouble, being able to keep her emotions hidden away. She had gotten better at it over the years. She’d had to keep her frustration with Jack hidden from him and her disintegrating marriage hidden from her family, and in her business life she was very good at playing what her editrix referred to as “journalistic poker”, but keeping jealousy and envy and the ferocious protective side of her nature off her face… that had always eluded her. 

Jack’s French son, Nicolas, noticed none of these undercurrents. He was simply overjoyed at the thought of a new baby in the family. He adored little Adam Collins, and pointed out not-so-modestly how much of a help he had been to Dot during her recent pregnancy, and hoped he could be of equal help to his favourite aunt. 

“You’re very sweet, Nico, darling,” Rosie smiled, “but since I won’t be staying here, that might be difficult.”

“Not—? But—” It was clearly inconceivable to the boy that Rosie should continue living on her own in her little flat while she was with child, when there was all of Wardlow to share. “Please, Auntie?” Nico begged. “I’ll give up my room for you and sleep in the kitchen!”

As always when she looked at Jack’s son, there was a sharp pang below Rosie’s breastbone. He was such a beautiful boy, so like Jack as she remembered him when they were young, that sometimes she found herself wishing that he was hers. The first time Jack brought him to visit her at the magazine offices, Regina Charlesworth had innocently complimented her on ‘her son’s’ fine manners. Jack had turned a bit pale and Nico blushed, but before Rosie could explain, Nico simply said, “Thank you, Mam’zelle,” and smiled shyly. “It does not bother me,” he told them, later. “I know if you and Papa had still been husband and wife, you would have taken me in, and I would call you Mama now.”

He had spoken with the assurance of a child who, despite a hard life, had never been anything less than loved and cherished by his family, and it hurt Rosie deeply to know in her heart, if she and Jack had still been married, perhaps with children of their own, that she would never have been able to accept sweet gentle Nicolas Berger as her son.

_I don’t wear green well,_ she reminded herself, patting Nico’s hand now, and letting him gently touch her stomach, though there was no sign of a baby yet. _Some women can carry jealousy well, but I never could, and it’s so exhausting, trying to._

She smiled at the well-meaning, worried fourteen-year-old. “Don’t worry, Nico,” she reassured him. “I’m going to be staying with Jack’s mother until I have the baby, so you’ll be able to come and visit whenever you want.”

He brightened immediately at that. “With my grandmother? With Grand-mère Sylvia? She will take you in?”

“Oh yes,” Rosie said, glancing at Jack. “We’ve always been fond of one another, and she’s got a very big heart. Just like your papa and Aunt Phryne. And you,” she added, ruffling his brown curls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End note: Jack’s mother is alive in this universe, because damn it, I can’t ride that angst pony all the time. ♥


	215. Reimbursement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Wait. Is this a date?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“So now that we’ve baited our trap,” said Phryne, as she and Jack walked arm-in-arm on the beach at Queenscliff, “how shall we while away our time until we know if the bait’s been taken?”

“Lunch,” Jack said firmly. 

Phryne slid her eyes sideways and looked at him from beneath her lashes. “Well,” she purred playfully, “there are some _very_ fine cafes in Queenscliff, if you feel like escorting me into town… but I really feel as though we should stay around the pier.”

“Hmph,” agreed Jack thoughtfully. “Fish and chips, then?”

“Perfect.”

“Am I allowed to be polite and pay for your meal, Miss Fisher? Or is that too traditional for a liberated woman such as yourself?”

“That depends, Detective Inspector. Do you expect me to reimburse you for my meal in any way?”

“Only with the pleasure of your company.” Jack nodded to the pier. “Since you want to stick close.”

Phryne grinned at her seemingly stoic companion, sizing him up yet again. “I think I could handle that.”


	216. Attraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Can I tell you a secret?” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by sheldonslog.

What was it, Jack wondered lazily, about his hair, that made every lover he'd ever had want to play with it? Rosie, Concetta, Phryne, Lili _and_ Sam… but especially Sam. “Every time I spend the night with you,” he murmured, “I wake up in the morning with your hands buried in my hair.”

“You mind?” Sam asked. The arm under Jack’s head flexed as he worked his fingertips against Jack’s scalp; the arm across his chest tightened, and Sam’s lips were insistent against the side of his neck. “‘Cause I can stop…”

“I would… very much rather… you didn’t stop…” Jack arched his neck slightly to give Sam more room. “Just… what’s the attraction?”

Sam shrugged and hitched a knee over Jack’s thigh. “Feels nice.” He dragged his lips and tongue slowly up Jack’s neck and cheek and then buried his nose in Jack’s thick brown hair. “Mmm… smells nice.”

“That’s all? That’s the deep dark secret of my hair, of all things?”

“Maybe we all just like touchin’ you, Jack,” Sam grinned. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Can’t say that I do.” Jack reached over and threaded his fingers through Sam’s much shorter hair and tugged him in for a kiss. His lips were soft and sure and his tongue sought out Jack’s mouth hungrily. “I’d love to wake up to you touching more than _just_ my hair, though.”

Sam’s grin was wide and wicked. “I can work with that.”


	217. Disreputable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I had very honorable intentions but then you had to go and wear the flimsiest excuse of a dress I've ever seen.” (Jack/Phryne) Requested by sheldonslog.

Phryne gasped and laughed for a second before Jack’s hand, the hand not supporting her ass as he pressed his body weight against her and pinned her to the wall, came down gently but firmly over her mouth. “Sssh,” he whispered, his eyes dark as storm clouds and dancing with adrenaline and lust. 

His knee slipped between her thighs and she rocked against him, hard. They moaned together, and Jack replaced his hand with his lips. “Take me out, Phryne,” he growled, lifting her up and tugging at her knickers. She heard the silk tear, and bit his tongue softly. 

“Jack Robinson… so noble and honourable…” She unbuttoned his fly and dipped into his underpants to squeeze his hard hot cock. “I love it when you go against type.”

“Wear dresses like this more often,” he rumbled, thrusting impatiently into her hand, “and I’ll play the disreputable seducer for you whenever you want me to.”


	218. Relax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I think I forgot to lock the door.” (Phryne/Bert/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“I gotta check on th’ cab,” Bert insisted. “Cec’ll have my head if I left it unlocked again… an’ it gets nicked again— _ohhh_ shit…”

Phryne gently redirected his mouth to the more pressing matter between her thighs. “The cab will be fine, Bert, dear,” she assured him, carding her fingers through his short blond hair, relishing the little whimpers and gasps he was making against her sensitive flesh as Jack pushed deeper into him. 

“But… ohgod, ohgod _damn!_ ”

“Relax,” Jack rumbled, smoothing a broad, callused hand gently up Bert’s spine. “We had Mr. Butler move the cab round back while you were in the shower.”

“Think of… ev’rything…” Bert raised his head from Phryne’s cunt and gasped for air as Jack slowly started to fuck him.

She pressed her palm tenderly to his cheek. “Of course,” Phryne said with a smile. “We wouldn’t want you to be distracted, now, would we?”


	219. Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “No need to get presentable on my account, honey. In fact, please don’t.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by slimwhistler.
> 
> In case you missed it, Sam Elsworth is an OC who was _supposed_ to be a throwaway character. He since has developed a tiny fandom, wth.

Sam particularly liked these nights. Not that he objected to the company of the ladies. He adored his wife and considered Phryne a kindred spirit, but on the evenings when they decided that they were more interested in each other than in him, it meant that he could retreat to the comfortable bedroom and big bed that was technically Jack’s, settle in with a book, and wait for him to return from the station. There was just something about Jack.

But it was getting awfully late. Sam glanced at the little alarm clock on the bedside table. Eleven p.m. Twelve a.m. 

At half-past one in the morning, Sam stirred. He blinked, yawned and stretched, closed the book that had fallen from his fingers and laid it on the table, and listened to the sound of tired feet making their careful way up the stairs. The footsteps paused further down the corridor, listening at Phryne’s door. Sam heard a low snorting chuckle and then the footsteps continued on to the next bedroom. They paused again, then the knob turned carefully. 

“It’s all right,” Sam smiled, “I’m awake.”

An exhausted and unshaven Jack Robinson poked his head through the door and looked sheepish. “You didn’t have to stay up for me.”

Sam shrugged. “I napped.” He threw off the bedclothes and stretched lazily. Jack’s lips twitched in a fond smile.

“Sam, mate, I’m tired.”

The playful look muted into a more tender expression. “Then come to bed.” 

“I should shave first…”

“Don’t worry about it. I like you scruffy.”

Jack shed his clothes gratefully and almost fell onto the mattress, curling into Sam’s broad chest and wrapping his arms around his waist. “Rough day, eh?”

“Buy the ranch back and take me with you,” was Jack’s muffled reply. “I’d rather deal with sheep than one more suspect interview.”

Sam pressed a kiss into Jack’s hair. “I wouldn’t go back to the ranch if you paid me. We’d never have time for any fun. Besides, sheep smell.”

“So do I. Feel like I haven’t had a bath in a year.”

“You don’t smell _that_ bad.” Sam rolled his eyes and sniffed dramatically. “Stale tea, ink, sweat… marihuana?”

“One of my witnesses was high as a bloody kite, and not the dopey sleepy kind of high, either. Insisted that he was made of glass and that Constable Foster was coming after him with a sledgehammer.”

Sam blinked. “…Think I’ll stick to tobacco for a while.”

Jack raised his head with a glare.

“Not that I’ve ever smoked anything besides tobacco, of course.”

“Of course.” Jack eyed his lover for a moment, then settled back down with a tired sigh. “Writers.”

Sam grinned broadly and then reached to turn out the light.


	220. Bubbly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That’s mine.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Jack could feel Phryne’s eyes on the back of his neck from across the room, as he conversed with Belinda Fraser. She was the daughter of Lord Fraser, who was one of Prudence Stanley’s most illustrious neighbors, and as Mrs. Stanley’s highly respectable not-quite-nephew, Jack knew it was in his best interests to be polite to her neighbors, especially when he was in her house and (as always) under suspicion of not being nearly as respectable as he tried to be. 

If Mrs. Stanley could see his thoughts as plied all his understated charm on the attractive young woman, her suspicions would have been entirely confirmed. 

“It sounds _terrifying_ , Detective-Inspector!” Belinda gushed. 

“All part of the jobs, Miss Fraser,” Jack assured her, with the kind of bored languor that the lounge lizard set utilized, with devastating results. Belinda fluttered at him invitingly. He finished his champagne and felt Phryne’s approach. The fabric of reality rippled when she moved through the world, and he had long since become sensitive to her movements. 

She was beside him, her hand slinking round his arm and clasping him possessively. “I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she purred, not sounding sorry in the least, “but I’m afraid Jack is rather desperately needed elsewhere.” And she steered Jack firmly away from the disappointed Belinda Fraser. 

Jack shook with barely contained laughter. “That was mean.”

“I got tired of watching her vamp you.”

“Worried about the competition?”

Phryne rolled her eyes and grinned viciously. “If you’re looking for something different from what you’ll find in my bed, I can introduce you to half a dozen women you’ll have more fun with. She’s looking for a husband.”

“Yes, so she told me. At least I think that was what she was talking about. I was rather preoccupied with thoughts of our recent… investigation, of the sofa in the music room.” Jack snagged a pair of champagne glasses from the tray of a passing waiter and handed one to Phryne. “So where was I so desperately needed, Miss Fisher?”

She took a sip of the bubbly wine and kissed him firmly. “Right here, darling.”


	221. Firing Squad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I dare you to.” (Jack & Jane) Requested by Anonymous.

Jack stared at the plate on the table, then at the girl sitting across from him, then at the plate again. “No.”

“You promised!”

“ _No,_ I said I would consider it. I’ve considered it. The answer is, once again, ‘No.’”

Jane’s hopeful features fell into a sulk. “But Uncle Jaaaack…”

Oh God no, not that. Phryne frequently teased him about how lucky he was to have never had a daughter, because it was clear from how Jane played him like a puppet that he would have been putty in his own little girl’s hands. Looking at Jane, Jack was unclear as to how this was any less devastating. “Janey,” he started, feeling on suddenly shaky ground, “you clearly went to a lot of trouble to prepare this for me, and I deeply appreciate it, but… it’s raw beef. And raw egg.”

“It’s _gourmet_ French cuisine,” Jane corrected, “and it’s my favorite thing that I ate when I was in France, and—” She bit her lip and looked down at her hands. “I wanted to share it with you.”

Oh hell.

“Just one bite, Uncle Jack? Please?”

…Oh _hell_.

Jack’s spine snapped to attention and he squared his shoulders as though about to face a firing squad. “All right, Janey,” he said, though his lopsided smile looked a bit more strained than usual. “Just one bite.”

Later, curled up in bed with a hot water bottle flat against his stomach while Phryne stroked his hair and teased him gently about the failure of his iron digestion, Jack remembered the delight on Janey’s face as he ate the entire dish of _steack à l'Americaine_ , and decided it was more than worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Wikipedia, “What is now generally known as "steak tartare" was then called _steack à l'Americaine_.”


	222. Well-Rested

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Stop staring at me like that, we’re already late for [insert appointment of choice].” (Phryne/Jack/Sam/Lili) Requested by sheldonslog.

Lillian Elsworth paused in the hallway for a moment to admire the very pretty picture her husband made, as he stood in the parlour with his mouth pressed to Jack Robinson’s. She motioned to Phryne, who was coming down the stairs, to proceed quietly. “I hate to say it,” she whispered, pulling the taller woman into an embrace just out of the view of the men, “but they’re much too gorgeous together.”

Phryne brushed a fond kiss over Lili’s hair. “We’re rather gorgeous together too, you know.”

“So Sam tells me. He does like to watch.” She snorted softly. “Typical male. Two sheilas in a bed and suddenly he’s tripping over himself to get a good seat.”

“Not like you, hmm?” Phryne teased. 

“I just happened to be passing by. Besides, they’re pretty.”

“They are.”

“Much too pretty. And getting much too involved—oy! Boys!”

Jack and Sam broke apart, breathing hard. There was a quick flicker of panic across both their faces, before they realized who was spying on them. Jack blushed and ran an embarrassed hand over his hair. Sam just grinned fit to kill. “Mornin’, honey,” he greeted. “Sleep well?”

“Not as well as you eventually did.” Lili sauntered into her husband’s embrace and _finally_ claimed a morning kiss. “D’you think you two red-blooded men could take it down a notch or two next time?”

“Sorry,” Jack coughed. 

“I’m not,” Phryne purred, beckoning him to come forward and receive his own morning greeting. “I do love hearing you enjoy yourself, Jack.”

“You like it too, Lil,” Sam teased, “c’mon, just admit it.”

“I like it fine, _but_ we’ve got a meeting with your agent this morning, Sam, and I would have _liked_ to be a little more well-rested for it.”

Sam just chuckled. “Not a problem, baby. Next time we’ll invite you to join us. You’ll be plenty well-rested after that.”


	223. Unknot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Yes, that’s it, right there.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Phryne settled both her knees comfortably on either side of Jack’s back and sank down carefully. Jack let out a soft rumble as the weight of her came to rest. “Nice,” he murmured. 

“I haven’t even started yet,” Phryne said with a smile. “Hand me the oil.”

Jack took the bottle from the nightstand and handed it back to her. “You’ve done this before?”

“Enough to know what I’m doing. I wouldn’t try if I didn’t. I don’t want to hurt you, Jack.”

He let out a huff of air. There was a lot of history behind that sigh. “I know, Phryne.”

She poured some of the oil into her palms and then leaned forward, smoothing her slick hands over his tight shoulders. “Put your arms at your sides, Jack, so I can unknot the muscles properly.”


	224. Antiquated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You like your meat tender.” (Phryne) Requested by damnbrunettes.

“Oh, don’t go all moralistic on me, Phryne!” Guy had chided her. “You like your meat tender, too!”

The barb had stuck with her, long after Guy and Isabella had left Australia in a huff, forgetting all about Marigold Brown and determined to leave Aunt Prudence as far behind as possible. It stuck with her, deeply, and rankled. 

The last thing she wanted was for anyone to equate her love of male company with… Guy. _Especially_ Guy. It was perfectly well for him. Men could be old and decrepit and still drape themselves with beautiful young (too young) women, even if it was for a price. It was different for a woman.

A woman could be glamorous, gorgeous, glorious in bed—all states of being that Phryne felt perfectly at home inhabiting, and blindingly intelligent and charming to boot. But at the beginning of every seduction, as she was sizing up her potential targets, there was always the question, ‘Is he too young?’ And the corresponding question, ‘Am I too old?’

The answer to the first question varied. The answer to the second was always, ‘No such thing, Phryne.’ And she believed it. Always had, always would. 

She wasn’t ready yet to face a future where she would be censured for being too antique to enjoy beautiful young men. If she had anything to say about it, by the time she got to those years, the whole idea of censure would be the antiquated concern.

She set down her drink and smiled at her escort. He was young, beautiful, and besotted. “Time to retire, I think,” she purred. 

The boy nearly climaxed then and there. “Of course, Miss Fisher.”


	225. Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You can drag me through hell if it meant I could hold your hand.” (Phryne/Mac) (lyric from Follow You by Bring Me The Horizon) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

They end up in the same field hospital once during the war. It’s brief but it’s enough, to see each other and feel each other, alive, warm, only slightly cleaner than the soldiers they’re trying so hard to keep breathing. 

There’s no privacy in the nurses’ barracks, none at all, but Mac has an arrangement with one of the doctors. They use his tent while he’s in surgery. Phryne bites down hard on her fist while Mac drinks in her arousal and uses her fingers and her tongue to draw out more, and soon Phryne is shaking with the sweet infection of a climax so powerful she’s frightened to let go. 

_This is hell,_ she thinks, afterward, stroking Mac’s head, pillowed on her thigh. _This is hell… the best of hells._


	226. Tuscan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Who was your first?” (Phryne/Lillian Elsworth) Requested by damnbrunettes.

Phryne stroked Lili’s short blonde hair and kissed her softly. “It’s been a long time, Lil,” she murmured, letting the backs of her fingers trail down Lili’s cheek. “We were young and curious… and the Tuscan air has such an effect on one… We don’t have to do this, if you’ve… no particular taste for women.”

“I’ve never had a taste for woman,” said Lili in her blunt way, though her voice was breathless and shaky, and she leaned instinctively into Phryne’s touch. “Just a taste for you. I never wanted any woman before you, and since then, I-I’ve tried… Sam’s had other women, and some of them wanted me, but they didn’t…”

“Do the trick for you?” Phryne suggested, gently teasing. But her eyes were tender. Slowly, giving Lili time to change her mind, she lowered her hand to Lili’s full breast and drew a thoughtful circle around her tight nipple.

“No,” Lili gasped. “Not… not like you. Is that… strange? Am I doing this wrong, whatever… _oh_ … whatever this is?”

Phryne smiled and leaned her forehead against Lili’s, still circling her nipple with her fingers. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to keep going?”

“God, yes.”

“Then you’re doing it right,” Phryne concluded, and pushed Lili gently back against the pillows.


	227. Attention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes.” (Phryne/Camellia) (from Prison Girls’ Neko Case) Requested by effingmurrays.

Light and shadow spun in a kaleidoscopic rush of adrenaline as Phryne fought her way out of the gang that had beset her on her nighttime ramble through Chinatown. She was vaguely aware of a slim figure beside her, that had detached itself from a wall at the first sign of trouble and was now fighting like an absolute tiger. 

At last, Phryne’s pistol was pressed firmly between the eyes of the last assailant standing. The remainder of the gang had either run off or been ably incapacitated by Phryne’s dagger and the mysterious figure. “Go,” she snarled. 

He went. 

Phryne breathed hard as she watched him flee. It had been a good fight, invigorating to the blood and the muscles and other various parts. She stowed her pistol in the pocket of her man’s jacket and turned to thank the stranger for his timely assistance. 

A familiar set of dark, intelligent eyes looked up at her from beneath an oversized soft cap. Phryne’s grin was one of genuine delight. “Hello, Camellia,” she said quietly. 

“Miss Fisher. Even incognito, you attract too much attention.”

“Whereas in a suit of men’s clothes, you become invisible. You must teach me how to do that.”

Camellia grinned back. “That will be hard. You do not want to be invisible.”

“Well, a lady does like a bit of attention… How is your husband?”

“Lin has been away on business for several weeks. That is why I was out tonight.”

“You were bored.”

Camellia nodded. “And in need of attention.” Her mouth quirked in a wry sort of expression, a not-quite-a-smile that said many things.

Phryne raised a pleased eyebrow. “I could use a sort of attention myself right now… if you’re agreeable?”

“Most agreeable. There is a place, not far, where we can get a room.”

Phryne offered her arm. Her grin was broad and jolly but her eyes glittered with promise. “Lead the way.”


	228. Bandeau

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is familiar this is so / This is so foreign / That's okay / Foreign's familiar to me now.” (Phryne/Jack/Rosie) (Busy by Butterfly Boucher) Requested by effingmurrays.

Jack’s hands were familiar on the fine bones of Rosie’s shoulder blades as he gently pushed her blouse off and lowered his lips to her breast, mouthing her nipple through the soft cotton of her bandeau. Rosie moaned softly and closed her eyes, leaning back against the slender, secure prop that Phryne afforded her as they stood before the full-length mirror in Phryne’s bedroom. Her lips were new and strange and alien on Rosie’s throat, and left waxy-warm lipstick kisses on the back of her neck and and the top of her spine. 

She undid the hooks of Rosie’s bandeau and then slid the tape shoulder straps down her arms, and rested her hands on Rosie’s hips, steadying her, while Jack discarded the garment and returned his focus to her unfashionably full breasts. 

Phryne pulled Rosie closer against her, her damp mound rubbing against Rosie’s ass, and hummed appreciatively at the meeting of warm soft feminine skin. It was something Rosie had thought never to experience, and certainly not while held so protectively between her ex-husband and his paramour. It felt... good. Strangely safe. And the longer they held her and touched her, the quicker it ceased to be strange at all.


	229. Trussed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My turn now.” (Phryne/Lillian/Jack) Requested by damnbrunettes.

“This is hardly fair, ladies,” Jack drawled, somehow managing to convey all his amusement and arousal and displeasure while being blindfolded and tied hand and foot to Phryne’s bed. “While you two are arguing over who gets to have me next, I have to lie here and suffer. What did I do to deserve this?”

Lili rolled her eyes and bent down to brush a kiss over his lips. “You’re as much of a drama queen as Sam,” she teased. 

“I hardly think that applies to me,” Jack retorted in a wounded voice. 

“Well,” Phryne drawled, kneeling on the bed between his spread legs, “you _are_ making this discussion all about you.” She dipped her head and lightly passed her tongue over his erection. 

Jack groaned deep in his chest. “I’m trussed up like a Christmas goose with my cock pointing towards Heaven. I’m not sure how much more ‘about me’ this discussion can get!”

“So what you’re saying,” Lili purred, moving to straddle his chest, “is that you want to be fucked.”

“...That would be nice, now that you mention it. Preferably before I pass out from the lack of blood to my brain. So could you two please make a decision? I’m starting to get—mmm,” he groaned abruptly, as all at once Phryne closed her lips around his dick and Lili pushed her cunt against his mouth. 

It was a fair compromise, he decided.


	230. Illumination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What’s the hurry, we’ve got all night.” (Phryne/Jack/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.

Bert woke abruptly, and for a few seconds, didn’t remember where he was. It was a mostly darkened room, with only an oil lantern burning on a central table to give him any kind of illumination. Which wasn’t much. All he knew was that he was naked save for his trousers, he was in an unfamiliar bed, and he was between wedged between a half-naked man and an entirely naked woman.

It was the woman’s trim little arse that jogged his memory. He knew those buttocks intimately. 

They’d arrived in the forgettable little country town in late afternoon, desperate for sleep after the interminable train journey. There’d been one room at the bare-bones hotel. Miss Fisher’d swapped some rings around, bluntly announced that Jack was her husband and Bert was her brother, and demanded the room. They’d gone upstairs, locked the door, made themselves comfortable, and passed out in a heap on the single bed. 

He let out a sigh of relief and laid back down, snuggling his back against the inspector’s bare chest and throwing an arm over Miss Fisher’s waist. She mewled a little and cuddled closer; Jack hummed and pressed more firmly against Bert’s arse. Then almost at the same time, Miss Fisher rolled onto her back and pushed Bert’s hand lower, and Jack pushed his hand down the front of Bert’s unbuttoned trousers. 

“Thought you two were tired,” Bert whispered, tracing his miss’s contours and thrusting lazily into Jack’s fist.

“We got sleep,” Jack replied, nibbling Bert’s shoulder.

“And we can get more sleep,” added Phryne, pulling Bert in for a kiss. “The night’s young.”


	231. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “But this is not a field in Flanders.” (Phryne/Bert/Jack) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

There was a field, beyond the city limits, where Bert liked to go sometimes, when the night was warm and clear and the scent of flowers rose up strong, and lay out with a blanket and a bottle of cheap wine, and look at the stars. It always had to be wine. The stars had been different at the Front, but after enough _vin de table_ they all started to blur together, and in the warm quiet air Bert could just hear the laughing of his mates. France hadn’t been a picnic but it sure seemed that way in his mind, compared to Gallipoli.

Most often he went alone. Sometimes he brought Cec, and they remembered their mates together. Thommo. Ronnie. The ones who hadn’t come home. But Cec wasn’t much for remembering, these days. He had his Alice. He had a future.

Bert had memories of the battlefield, fleeting dreams of a tart called Annette, a burning night with Tatiana... visions of Thommo dying and Ronnie dying... a dying belief in the possibility of revolution.

He had Miss Fisher, and Robinson. Well. They had him.

 

* * *

 

There was a field outside the city, soft with overgrown grass until they got to the very top. Jack climbed up to the summit with Albert and Miss Fisher and helped spread the blankets they’d brought. It was warm enough that he had to discard his trench coat. Spreading it out on the ground to augment the blankets made his skin prickle a bit, recalling the times he’d done the same thing in Flanders in the springtime, when the flowers had tried so hard to bloom. But the coat had been threadbare, and the ground had been choking mud, and the stars above had been interspersed and blotted out with mortar and machine gun fire.

The wine sat in his stomach like a mouthful of vinegar. He’d done his best to avoid wine, as much as possible, since coming home. His cousin gave him bottles of expensive port at Christmas; he always gave them away. He gave the rest of his glass to Bert and watched him drink it off before leaning in to kiss the cabbie.

Jack pulled Bert closer, needing to kiss away the taste of the cheap wine, needing to rub away the memory of mud and exploding stars.

 

* * *

 

There was a field that Phryne remembered, far away in Europe, where her youth was buried along with the bodies of millions of men and women, soldiers and civilians, where the smells of mud and blood and disinfectant had intertwined with the scent of cigarettes and wine and gunpowder, right down to their component molecules. There would be poppies there now. The field Bert brought them to was different. The grass was tall and soft on the sides and worn almost to smooth bare earth at the top, and made a wonderful cushion for the blankets that he and Jack now rolled together on, each trying to crawl inside the other, to take pleasure, to forget.

She took off her shoes and stockings and watched them make love, touching one another with blunt-ended fingers stained with thin sharp wine, kissing with teeth, nails digging. They were the caresses of people who had known too much pain to live without it entirely.

Phryne rose and calmly took off her clothes, and put herself in between her men. The stars swam in her vision as Jack and Bert turned their attention to her, and she drank the last of the wine from their kisses.


	232. Weeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I will take it to my grave.” (Jack/Concetta) Requested by omgimsarahtoo, who also asked for 'An AU where Jack and Concetta fall in love before Phryne comes to Melbourne.'

Concetta twisted the ends of her black veil, and then slowly, lowered the lace from her smooth hair. Her face was pale and her dark eyes seemed enormous. “Gianni... there is a question I must ask you.”

Jack frowned in confusion. “Anything, you know that.”

“We are... friends... yes?”

“I hope so,” he replied, with a little smile. 

“You would like to be more than my friend.”

“...I would, yes.” Jack licked his dry lips, thinking his next words over carefully. “If that’s agreeable to you, of course. After however much time you need to mourn—”

“I wear these weeds because it is expected. I do not mourn Francesco’s death. But Gianni... you have wanted me for so long. So I must ask, and you must tell me the truth: did you kill him?”

Jack recoiled in horror. “No!”

“If you did... then you have my silence.” She smiled wanly at his expression of shock. “He was a pig, Gianni. You know that. Whoever took his life did me a favour. It was only a matter of time, I think, before he would have driven me to it myself.”

“Concetta—”

“You don't know the things he did to me, Gianni,” she snapped. Her eyes blazed with a hard light. Jack had seen that look before, on abused women who had finally had enough, and taken the law into their own hands while their husbands or pimps slept. “If you killed him, then I will ask God to bless you forever. But only so long as you marry me. As a widow, I am back under my grandfather’s control... and I would rather not be there.”

Jack swallowed once or twice before he answered. “Concetta... I didn’t kill him. I am an officer of the law—” She snorted. “—and I take that responsibility very seriously. Had I seen him raise a hand to you, I probably would have shot him, but I wouldn’t murder a man in cold blood. Not even a man like Francesco.”

“...Ah.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“To know that you have no blood on your hands gives me great relief, Gianni. And... I am sorry I tried to badger you into marrying me, in exchange for my silence.” She bit her lip. “It was not right.”

Jack reached out and took her hand. “Concetta. I love you. You know that. I would be honored and proud to be your husband. But I don’t know who killed Francesco Fabrizzi. And until I do... I can’t ask you to marry me. I can’t profit off of an unknown death... especially not when your family might have the same suspicions that you did.” He kissed her strong hand ardently. “But I will find his murderer. And then, il mio amore, I will ask you to be my bride.”

Tears in her eyes, Concetta bent and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “And I will say yes, Gianni.”


	233. Smug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You have a type.” (Jack & Rosie) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> Technically, this is more of an **I** asked for it, since I prompted Firesign23 for this. But then she told me to write it myself, so...

Rosie’s not surprised, not really, when her ex-husband is romantically linked with Phryne Fisher. She saw it from the first, even before her father and Mr. Fletcher tried (and nearly succeeded) in turning her completely against the baron’s daughter. She saw it in Phryne’s dark hair, in the laughter hiding in the corner of her beautifully-formed mouth, in the grace of her movements and the capable way she had of taking command of a situation. 

She’s not surprised because they’re all qualities that Rosie knows she herself possesses. 

If anything surprises her, it’s that Phryne got to Jack first. 

There was another woman, a widow, the granddaughter of an Italian restaurateur whose establishment Jack particularly liked. He took Rosie there, sometimes, when she needed to get away from her sister's house, before and after the divorce was made final. Rosie has told him very firmly not to refer to her as his wife, after she moved out, and he obeyed her request scrupulously. 

No doubt that was why Concetta Fabrizzi felt so easy about attending to Jack, helping him with his coat and making sure that he had his preferred wine (Jack avoided wine at home; something to do with the war... but he drank it gladly at Strano’s), and treating Rosie with all the courteous politeness that was due to a woman who was plainly an old friend of ‘Gianni’s’ but whom he did not seem to be involved with. 

Yes, Jack Robinson had a type. And if she was honest with herself... that made Rosie feel rather smug. 

He might have a type, but she had formed the outline against which he measured all other women.


	234. Prepared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How do you expect me to react to that?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Fits in with [Chapter 96](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11565034) and [Chapter 139](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/12096632).

It was the evening of Jack’s thirty-eighth birthday, and in a mirror of the previous occasion of his birth, their adopted son Anthony was curled up on his chest. “He’s like a cat,” Jack chuckled, shifting to take some of the chunky boy’s weight off his chest. “I just hope he grows out of this before too much longer.”

Phryne stroked Anthony’s back soothingly, to hear the little boy coo. “I can hardly believe it’s been a whole year. I never expected he would take to me the way he did... or that I could becomes so fond of him… Do you remember what I said to you, Jack, before we got him? When Concetta’s baby was born?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“I told you that I would never offer to have a child with you, but if one should happen by accident, I wouldn’t be dismayed.”

“Yes… and then you said you’d want to keep it,” Jack recalled, his voice low and controlled, “because it would be part of me, and you’re a jealous woman who wants all of me to yourself. Phryne, are you pregnant?”

She bent to kiss his forehead and then rested her cheek on his hair. “Six weeks or so, Mac thinks. It was that long night on the Merrick stake-out and I was… unprepared.” 

Mindful of the baby, Jack stretched a hand up to her. “We have the nursery,” he reminded her, “and Dot’s sister Bess as nursemaid. We’re at least prepared for another child.”

“So we are,” Phryne murmured, kissing his fingers. “Jack... are you pleased?”

“If there wasn’t a baby on my chest, I would show you just how pleased I am. However...” Jack stood up carefully, shouldered the boy, and carried him away, returning a few minutes later _sans_ child. He sank to his knees beside the bed, tears in his eyes. “Tell me again,” he said softly. 

Phryne framed his face in her hands. “Jack, darling,” she murmured, kissing him. “You’re going to be a father.”


	235. Iniquity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Louder than the trombones of Jericho.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by balticprincess.
> 
> PS: I hope you feel better soon!!! ♥

The vibe of the club was seedy, dark, and decadent. “This is a den of iniquity, Miss Fisher,” Jack murmured into her ear as they swayed together on the dance floor. “Hardly the sort of place for a respectable police detective.”

“Which is why I love bringing you here,” she purred, pressing her back to his chest, and smiling as his big hands circled her waist. “When you’re here, you’re not that respectable police detective anymore. You’re just Jack.” Phryne reached a lithe arm back and pressed her palm to his cheek. “My Jack.”

“Sometimes I wish you could say that in public…” But he ameliorated the bittersweet tone with a gentle nip on her earlobe, and then a less gentle on at the juncture of her neck and throat. “However, in private is almost as good… in some ways, better.”

“Mmm… come home with me tonight, Jack, and I’ll say it louder than all the trombones of Jericho.”

“I believe the Good Book refers to ‘trumpets’, Miss Fisher,” Jack said, husking out his words with low promise. 

“Trombones, trumpets…” Phryne spun round in his arms and kissed him passionately. “All the sounding brass in Heaven has nothing on me when you get me going.”


	236. Certainty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “So drink up all you people / Order anything you see / Have fun you happy people / The laughs and the jokes on me” (Angel Eyes by Ella Fitzgerald) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy. 
> 
> The ship's there, but obliquely. I went a little further afield with this one.

Lady Margaret Fisher collected a pair of champagne flutes from a passing waiter and threaded her way effortlessly through the crush of people in the ballroom, towards a tall, quiet Colonial gentleman standing in an out-of-the-way corner. He inclined his head politely as she approached, but she took note of the warm amusement in his eyes. “You are in your element, Baroness,” he said, accepting the champagne with a small smile.

“It’s much easier for me to be at home in a crowd,” she agreed, amiably enough. “And you, Detective-Inspector Robinson, are very much not in your element.”

Jack grimaced slightly. “Not crowds like this.” They turned and swept their eyes over the throng of guests, the glittering gowns and headdresses of the women and the glossy black and blinding white tuxedos of the men, each searching for the same image, a slender nymph in a green dress that looked simple and cost the moon. “Your daughter is very much like you.”

“Not hardly,” Margaret snorted. “She’s never let herself be swept off her feet the way I was.” The sidelong look she gave Jack was full of understanding that she would not give voice to in such a public setting, and asked many questions of him. “Every man in this room tonight is the catch of the season. But to her, they’re just toys.”

“Yes,” said Jack. “I know.” He sipped his champagne and watched Phryne with the same warm amusement as he had watched Margaret… and something more. There was a certain… certainty in his gaze, Margaret decided. He was certain of her daughter.

She let out a relieved sigh and joined him in quiet contemplation.


	237. Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not dilly-dallying once you’ve made up your mind, huh?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“Jack. _Jack._ Wake up. It’s time to go.”

“Nngh? Phryne, it’s the middle of the night. Go where?”

“Back.”

“Back, to… we’re in your flat.”

“Back to Australia, Jack. Back to Melbourne.”

“…Now?”

“Yes. Start packing. I’ll turn on the lamp.”

“No. Come back to bed. We can pack in the morning.”

“There’s a boat leaving Liverpool at five. That gives us three hours to get there.”

“It’s longer than three hours to Liverpool, even with your driving… No.”

“Jack!”

“Absolutely not, I am not getting into that bloody plane on two hours of sleep just so you can make a boat before dawn.”

“Fine, I’ll go without you.”

“No. Now come here, I’m cold.”

“Oh… _fine_ … move over, you’re taking up the whole bed.”

“I am, yes. Because if I don’t, you will, and I can’t very well sleep on top of you, but you fit very nicely on top of me.”

“You do have a point… mmm…”

“Phryne. Why decide you want to go home right now, this instant?”

“Jack, darling. I said I wanted to go _back_. You’re my home.”

“Phryne… but why now?”

“Because… why wait?”

“‘Why’, indeed… go to sleep, Phryne.”

“Good night, Jack.”


	238. Pandarus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want to be alone tonight.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by sheldonslog.

The constable on guard was promptly dismissed, so that only Jack was at Rosie’s shoulder as she stood, frozen, in the door of the small hospital room. “You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly. 

He didn’t add, “He doesn’t deserve your consideration.” He didn’t need to say it aloud. Rosie heard it in the pounding of her own heart, tasted it in the sick copper flavour pooling in her mouth. She curled her gloved fingers into her palms and stepped into the small room. One step. Then two. 

Sidney Fletcher lay in the narrow bed, very quiet and still. The bullet wound he had received on the _Pandarus_ had been minor, but infection had set in rapidly and he had slipped into unconsciousness soon after arriving at the hospital. His fever raged. He wasn’t expected to survive the night. 

Rosie couldn’t move any further forward. She whirled back and found herself wrapped in a familiar gray trench coat. It smelled of whiskey and bay rum cologne, comforting smells. “Stay with me,” she whispered, clenching folds of his coat in her hands. “Until…”

“Shh, shh...” Jack pressed a kiss to the side of her head. When she looked up, he ventured to kiss her lips softly. Rosie stretched up into that kiss, needing the touch of someone safe, and making it last as long as she could.


	239. Initiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m more of a leg man.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by damnbrunettes.

Jack’s gentle amusement only grew with her attempt to rile him. “You’re waving a red rag at a bull, Miss Fisher,” he chided her with warm eyes. It felt good to be able to look at her with such affection (that was all he would call it) and not have to feel guilt over it. “But I’m no longer in that ring.” 

Phryne’s eyes were equally warm. “Olé,” she toasted him cheekily. “So, Jack,” she continued after a moment or two, “what _did_ you think of my fan dance?”

“It was very… well-choreographed.”

“That’s all?”

“The feathers were a pleasant shade of pink.”

“Hmm. And was anything else a pleasant shade of pink?”

“Yes,” said Jack, trying and failing to surprise a chuckle. “Constable Collins’s cheeks. For a second or two, I was worried he might drop dead from shock. I _think_ that might have been his first sight of an unclothed female torso.”

“Well,” Phryne joked. “A living one, at least.” 

“Congratulations, Miss Fisher. You’ve begun my constable’s initiation into manhood.”

“And that is one of my favourite pastimes.”

Jack coughed a bit, but managed to swallow his mouthful of whiskey. 

“And you, Jack?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I was initiated a very long time ago.”

Phryne’s eyes dragged over him slowly, down and back up, with such a heated expression that Jack was a little concerned she might set something on fire. “Did you like what you saw?”

Jack tugged his lower lip with his teeth in thought. “Insofar as unclothed female torsos go – living ones – I am… an admirer.”

“Hmm…”

“But I have to confess… I’ve always been more of a leg man, myself. And I will admit… Miss Fisher… I was quite taken.”

She stepped even closer into his personal space and slid her palm down his arm. Covering his hand with her own, she guided him to her thigh. 

Jack’s breath snagged softly in his chest. Phryne looked at him with bold, almost-calm desire. “How taken, Jack?”

He showed her.


	240. Wisteria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Please? It’s my birthday!” (Jane & Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Janey? You out here?”

Jane looked out from her hiding place in the garden. “Over here,” she called softly. 

Jack came down the little flagstone path and found her curled up on a bench, well-concealed in the shade behind a bush of wisteria. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked. “You ran away from your own birthday party.” 

“I just needed to be alone for a few minutes,” she smiled. She untucked her legs and shifted to make room on the bench. “Sit with me?” Jack sat, and was surprised and very touched when she put her head on his shoulder. “There’s… something I’ve been thinking about.” 

Jack waited. “It’s all right, Janey. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“It’s nothing bad, I don’t think. But you might not like it.”

Gently, Jack took her by the shoulders and sat her up, so that he could look her in the eye. “What’s going on?”

“I was just wondering… it’s silly. I’m sixteen now, I’m practically grown-up! But… it is my birthday…” She blushed and bit her lip. “I’ve been calling you ‘Uncle Jack’ for so long, but I was wondering if, just for today, I could call you ‘Dad’.”

Jack stared at her dumbly. “Oh, Janey,” he said hoarsely, when he could find his voice, and hugging her tightly. “You can call me Dad for as long as you like.”


	241. Jump

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did I make you jump?” (Author’s Choice) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> I couldn’t decide, so I did two of them.

**(Jack/Rosie)**

She started violently at the sound of the door opening. “Sorry,” said Jack, looked abashed.

“No, I...” Rosie sat up and looked around in confusion at the familiar walls and furniture of Jack’s living room. It had been her own living room as well, until she had moved out to live with her sister, six months before. “I must’ve fallen asleep, waiting for you.”

He looked at her for a moment or two, then set down his briefcase and bent down to kiss her forehead. “You’re always welcome here,” he promised. “Is anything wrong?”

“Jack, I...” Her bravery faltered for a moment or two. “I’ve... missed you.”

All his caution and reserve melted away. “Oh, Rosie,” he murmured, gathering her into his arms. “I’ve missed you, too.”

 

* * *

 

**(Phryne/Jack)**

“A very nice selection of specimens,” said an amused voice next to his ear.

Jack slammed the album shut and jumped up from his chair so hard he knocked it over. He whirled round on the interloper with a white face and wide eyes. “Phryne!” he gasped, and had to refrain from clutching his heart. “It’s—that’s not—”

Phryne picked up the photograph album and calmly perused the black and white studies of handsome young men in a variety of poses, most of them naked, some of them in flagrante with one another. “Another bit of confiscated contraband?”

“Yes! That is... I have to review them... for the court.”

She raised an eyebrow over one particular plate. “Good lord, this chap is flexible. I had no idea penises could do that.”

“Yes, I rather--oh, goddammit.”

“Jack.” She closed the album, set it on his desk, and approached him as she would a wild animal she was attempting to befriend. “I think we understand one another by now, yes?” She held out her hand.

He kissed it with quick, searing gratitude.


	242. Fifty-Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“You,” Jack gasped, as the car came to an abrupt stop, “are a lunatic. In fact, I’m beginning to think you’re fifty-seven different kinds of lunatic wrapped up in fur and feathers.”

Phryne rolled her eyes and got out of the Hispano. “Coming?”

“Give me a minute until my heart drops out of my throat. Did you even realize we passed four police officers in the span of twenty minutes?”

She looked at him innocently. “Of course! I counted them.”

“And you couldn’t have been moved by kindness or mercy to slow down just a little bit?”

“What, and let them catch up?”

“I should write you the citation myself,” Jack complained as he and Phryne entered the station house. “You must’ve been going at least a hundred miles an hour.”

“Oh, don't be so melodramatic,” Phryne teased, thwacking his arm lightly with her handbag. “It was barely above sixty.”

“I was praying to deities I didn’t even know existed—”


	243. Surrender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Yes, that’s it, right there.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Oh, _God_ ,” Jack groaned against her lips, as she closed her fingers around him. It sounded like a sob, like gratitude, one small momentary surrender among the millions between them. His arms were like iron around her, if iron bands ever trembled the way he did beneath her touch. “To hell with reputation,” he gasped, letting his head fall back on his pillow. “How do you do this to me...?”

She tightened her grip just slightly and was rewarded with a glorious low moan. “What about what you do to me...”

He panted and grinned breathlessly at her. “What about it?”

She let go just long enough so that Jack could pull her blouse up over her head. He didn’t even bother unhooking her brassiere, just pulled her close with one swift jerk and pulled the silk and satin away to give his mouth room to work. His teeth scraped delicately against her nipple. Phryne let out a little mewl. 

“Do that again.”

“What?”

“That noise.”

“Which noi—oh!” He cupped her other breast, thumbing her nipple in precisely the way that sent hot hungry claws curling into her innards. She pressed her lips together hard but the high, soft little noises were plain to hear. 

Jack grinned. “That one.” 

Phryne drew her finely-penciled eyebrows together in an attempt at a scowl. “You’re very bold, Inspector Robinson, to think you can command me in this forward way.” 

But it was no use; Jack had hauled her over and half sat up, so that she was practically in his lap, with his face buried in her cleavage and the hot hard length of him pressed against her. “Seeing as how you invaded my home and are currently in my bed, Miss Fisher...” He glanced up at her, eyes laughing. “You’re hardly in a position to argue.”


	244. Convincing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OBERON  
> Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once.  
> The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid  
> Will make or man or woman madly dote  
> Upon the next live creature that it sees. (2.1.175-178)  
> (Phryne/Jack) 
> 
> Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Upon leaving the club, and while Jack was hailing a cab, Phryne decided that she simply _had_ to have Jack, as soon as possible. He was the first person she had laid eyes on that morning, the only person whom she had cared to spend much time looking at all day and all evening, and at no point during their frantic investigation had they had the opportunity for intimacy. She needed to get laid, by him, and it had to happen _now_.

Their driver was neither Bert nor Cec, but he was still someone Phryne knew could be trusted to look the other way, especially if she were to stuff a pound note or two down the back of his shirt collar on her way out. Jack was less convinced, but luckily for Phryne, she knew ways of convincing her inspector.

“If we get caught,” Jack growled, pulling Phryne into his lap and clawing at the buttons of his fly, “I’m turning King’s Evidence on you.”

“Fine,” she retorted, hiking up her skirt and pushing his hand up between her thighs to demonstrate her lack of underwear. He groaned at the contact, deep in his chest. “Then I won’t pay for your defense.”


	245. Fork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How did you manage that?” (Hugh & Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Jack looked up from his desk at the commotion from the front of the station. And then to his surprise, he saw Constable Collins go by, marching an obviously cuffed Phryne Fisher past towards the lock-up. 

When Hugh returned, it was to his wide-eyed boss. “Did you just arrest Miss Fisher?”

“Um, yes, sir.”

“…And she _let_ you?”

“Yes, sir. As she made very clear to me.”

“What did she do?”

“She stabbed someone.”

“...As in, with a knife?”

“Uh, no, sir. With a fork.”

“...A fork.”

“Yes, sir. At a dinner party. Apparently the gentleman in question was... attempting to remove food from Miss Fisher’s plate. After she’d repeatedly warned him not to.”

Jack’s furrowed brow smoothed instantly. “Ah, well that explains it.”

“Sir?”

“Simple enough, Collins. Never try to take food from someone who used to wonder where their next meal was coming from.”


	246. Sentiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If this is just a dream, please don’t wake me up.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack sighed in frustration and rolled over, being careful to stay on the right side of the bed. It was the same bed he has slept in when he was married to Rosie, and it was much too big for one person. The smart thing to do would have been to dispose of the mattress after his divorce, but Jack’s engrained Scotch thriftiness wouldn’t allow him to get rid of a perfectly good mattress just because of sentiment. Still, the habit of sticking to his side of the bed remained. Rosie had been a little bit of a bed-hog.

Phryne seemed like she would be the same, he thought, curling around his pillow. She would share the bed if he insisted... provided they ever got the opportunity to share the same bed. Which was starting to seem less and less likely. No one had heard from Phryne in weeks. He hoped she was safe and on her way home.

He thought of the last image he had of her, of her hand waving at him from far up in the air. He touched his lips gently, buried his face in his pillow, and cried himself to sleep yet again.

He dreamed his favorite dream, that she was there, spooned against his back, her face nuzzling against his hair. Then Jack turned over in her arms and... bliss. Sometimes they progressed to making love, sometimes they simply held each other, cuddling and smiling. They never spoke, but her eyes told him everything he needed to know. 

Waking up in the morning had become very hard, since Phryne Fisher had left his life without gracing his bed. And when Jack finally did get up, he always made the bed neatly, just in case she came back into his life and needed a place to sleep.


	247. Claustrophobia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A girl can get lonely out here on the road.” (Phryne/Jack) For flashofthefuse. Inspired by [this post](http://flashofthefuse.tumblr.com/post/138950957254/i-had-just-heard-this-song-and-minutes-later-read). 
> 
> Companion to #246

It was summer in Europe and Asia now, and sometimes Phryne preferred to forgo the confines of whatever lodgings were available to her and sleep out under the stars. Dangerous, of course, especially as a woman alone in places that looked askance at such things, but the months in London had reawakened all her latent claustrophobia and made her crave the open skies, open plains, open seas. The last time she remembered feeling safe in a confined space was in Jack’s arms, at the airfield. 

The crushed grass was sweet beneath her ground cloth, which only enhanced the memory of Jack. The scent of the tall grasses had been strong on that last day, whipped up by the wind. If Phryne closed her eyes tightly and concentrated hard, she could just catch a whiff of the other smells that hung around Jack like an aura: bay rum cologne, the sweet scent of hair pomade, whisky, the clean soap-and-male smell of his skin. 

But the scent memories were fleeting, and try as she might, Phryne couldn’t conjure up the feeling of his arms around her. Not for the first time, and not for the last, she wished he was with her. She turned over in her bedroll, seeking comfort from the ground and yearning to be home just an hour sooner.


	248. Sybarites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Why, Jack, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to woo me.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Follows on from #246 & #247.

They kissed from the airfield all the way to Jack’s house in South Melbourne, and to the end of his life Jack had no recollection how he had managed to make that drive without crashing his car, but she was home and she was in his arms, and in the blink of an eye, she was in his bed. 

“I spruced up the place for you,” he murmured, in between dragging his lips over her throat and collarbones. 

“Mmm, clean sheets _and_ new pillows? All for me? How sybaritic of you, Inspector.”

“Only the best for you, Miss Fisher. Especially after all those nights of camping alone.” 

“If I didn’t know any better, Jack, I’d almost say you were trying to entice me into something…”

She was too clothed and he was too clothed and soon neither of them was clothed at all, except for Phryne, draped over Jack like a blanket as she rested on his chest, both of them hushed and relishing the new feeling of him inside her, her surrounding him. 

His arms were warm around her torso, his hands were gentle on her back, and she shuddered deliciously in his embrace. 

They slept well, that night.


	249. Gruesome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Please stop doing that.” (Dot/Hugh) Requested by rithebard.

“Dottie, it’s…” Hugh trailed off and swallowed, his voice shaking. “It’s not a fit sight. You should stay out here until we’ve… cleaned up.”

Dot squared her shoulders and looked her husband straight in the eye. Well, as straight as she could when Hugh couldn’t seem to look at anything for more than two seconds together without going green. “Hugh, you don’t need to try and protect me from… gruesome sights. Besides, I have a job to do.”

“Armstrong can do the scribing—”

“Not this time, Collins,” said the Inspector, coming into the house’s entrance hall. He was passing a handkerchief over his mouth. Even his experienced nerve seemed to have been tested by the death. “I specifically asked Mrs. Collins to come take notes on the scene, and to help us question the ladies and the domestic staff.”

“But…” Hugh paused, trying to control a gag reflex. “Sorry, Dottie. There’s… a lot of blood.”

Her smile was apologetic and a little indulgent. “I’ll be all right, Hugh, I promise. This way, Inspector?”

“I’ll join you in a minute, Dot.” Jack looked his senior constable over for a second or two, then pulled a discreet flask out of his inner pocket. “Here.”

“Thank you, sir.” Hugh unscrewed the little cap gratefully and took a swig. “You’d think—” He coughed sharply. “You’d think that after two years of this, I’d be used to it by now.”

“It’s different for everyone, Collins. Some of us never get used to it. Doesn’t make you a lesser man.” 

“I’m just surprised at how well Dottie handles it. She’s so gentle.”

“Ah, well.” Jack tucked his flask back into his jacket and clapped Hugh once on the shoulder. There was a touch of something in his smile that Hugh couldn’t place. “Women do tend to see more blood than men do, generally.”

Hugh frowned. “Sir?”

“Oh dear God… ask your wife later, Collins.”


	250. Phantoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You took the part that once was my heart / So why not take all of me?” (Phryne/Jack) (lyrics from “All of Me” as sung by Ella Fitzgerald) Requested by missfisherobsessed.

The memory of her ghosted across Melbourne like a fleeting photographic negative; everywhere Jack looked, he saw her, out of the corners of his eyes, in the mirrors of his police car, hovering over the bodies at his crime scenes. But when he looked up, she was always gone, and his heart with her. 

It made no sense to be seeing Jack in the crowds in Calcutta and Karachi, in Baghdad and Constantinople, but nonetheless Phryne swore she saw him, his trim fedora standing out starkly among the turbans and the abayas and the military helmets. She stopped running after the vision, after the first time, when she pushed her way through the market in Bangkok for half a mile before she realized she was running after a phantom. But she kept looking for the man she’d left her heart with.


	251. Safe as Houses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Don't mind Bert, he's mostly housebroken.” (Cec/Alice) Requested by Anonymous.

The eyes that opened hesitantly and then locked on Cec in confusion and fear were enormous in the girl’s pale face, big and brown and scared. “Easy, darlin’,” he smiled, squeezing her hand. “You’re gonna be all right.” 

“Who… who?”

“Y’ got dropped into our cab, luv,” said Bert from his spot in the corner, managing to sound like he still had a cigarette between his lips. “Made a right mess’ve things, too.”

Cec shot his partner a look. “Don’t mind Bert. He talks a big game, but he’s safe as houses. I’m Cec.” 

The girl’s eyes darted from him to Bert and back again. “Where’m I?”

“Women’s hospital. It’s almost night.” 

Her hand, surprisingly strong for someone so ill, clenched his tightly. “Don’t go?” She sounded terrified, and tired.

Cec smiled gently, and felt something warm spread through his chest. “Ain’t goin’ anywhere,” he promised. 

From his corner, Bert snorted.


	252. Critical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Stop fussing, this will only hurt a minute.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

His hands slipped beneath her skirt again and tugged her French underwear impatiently down her silk-stockinged legs. “Are you in any pain?” Phryne placed her hands flat on his chest and made him look at her. “Jack.”

“Not to notice.” He gulped under her critical gaze, amazed yet again at her ability to maintain focus at a time when his brain was very much not in his head. “So long as I don’t move too much...”

“So I’m to do all the work, is that it?”

“If-if you wouldn't mind.”

The little hitch in his voice went straight to Phryne’s carefully-buried shameless romantic heart. “I don’t mind a bit,” she assured him, leaning down to press a soft, promising kiss to the base of his throat. “But you owe me for next time. And I know you always pay your...” The rest of her sentence was lost in a long low sigh as she sank slowly onto him.


	253. Second-Favourite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is my favorite part.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

She didn’t lead him to her bedroom by the hand; she led the way and he followed after a moment, loosening his tie. Rosie closed the door behind him and regarded him with wry tenderness. “How long has it been?”

“Since we...?”

“For you.”

His cheekbones darkened slightly. It was how he blushed. “You were the last woman I was with.”

“That was over three years ago.”

“Yes,” he said huskily. 

Rosie sighed and untied her dressing gown. Jack’s eyes were suddenly riveted to the outline of her body beneath the satin nightie, and he let out a sound like a strangled whimper. “Why?” Rosie asked softly, stepping close. 

“I didn’t want anyone else.”

“There’s Miss Fisher.” She was glad she could drop that between them matter-of-factly, without rancor or cattiness brought on by fear. There was Miss Fisher. It was, simply, what it was. “You want her.”

“I do.”

“You love her.”

“I love you, too,” he reminded her, placing his hands cautiously on her shoulders, bare but for slim satin straps. He rubbed his thumbs over her collarbones. “Never stopped. I told you before we left court that day. Love’s... not all that’s needed, sweetheart. Not for...” He drew in a breath that stuttered in his chest. “Not for what I want with Miss Fisher.”

Rosie raised a hand and traced a fingertip over the tendons on the back of Jack’s hand. “We have love,” she murmured, feeling tears studding the corners of her eyes and not quite sure why they were there. “We have love, and friendship, and no expectations... and I miss you, Jack. I miss your hands.”

He tilted her chin up and smiled at her with bittersweet eyes. “I miss your legs. They were my favourite part of you. Well. Second-favourite part.” But the sweetness outweighed the bitter, and Rosie had to giggle. 

“You always were a leg man, weren’t you...”

“Guilty as charged,” he murmured, bending down to kiss her softly.


	254. Gusto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I hoped you might take the hint.” (Phryne/Concetta) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

Strano’s was closed, but the hostess was still in residence, and when Phryne knocked (discreetly, at the kitchen door) a night or two later, Concetta let her inside. She was warm and welcoming, but subdued. “You look well,” the tall, dark-haired woman said, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. 

Phryne did not wither under the implications of this hint. “And you look… weary.”

Concetta shrugged. “I am not used to being alone. No matter. I will become accustomed to it.”

Phryne thought back to the evening with Jack in the parlour, the intervals of lovemaking and wine punctuated by quiet conversation and serious confessions of admiration for Signora Fabrizzi… and not merely from a mutual respect for her strength. “Surely there’s no need to become accustomed to it?” she suggested, laying a soft hand on Concetta’s arm. 

“…Miss Fisher… Phryne…” A slight blush darkened the skin over Concetta’s cheekbones for a brief moment. 

“It’s obvious that you and I have a similar taste in men,” Phryne continued, carefully, slowly letting her hand inch up the black silk of Concetta’s sleeve. “Would it alarm you to know that he and I have much the same taste in women, as well?”

Concetta’s eyes widened and her breath quickened, but she did not move away from Phryne’s touch. If anything, she moved closer. “I will not lie… I could not be entirely upset that Gianni chose you over me. There is a part of me that commends his choice. And… wishes that I could share it.”

By this time, Phryne’s hand had made its leisurely way up Concetta’s arm, over her shoulder, and was now curled against the warm column of her neck. “Sometimes,” Phryne said, her gaze flickering to Concetta’s full lips, “the best choice is to embrace both options… with equal gusto. Si?”

Concetta’s smile was slow to make itself known, but when it did it was a thing to behold. “Si,” she agreed, bringing Phryne’s palm, and then Phryne’s mouth, to her lips. “Si.”


	255. Ouija

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.” (Bruce Lee) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Not for the first time, Phryne Fisher found herself stuck at an out-of-the-way crime scene due to an unexpected snowstorm. Not for the first time, Jack Robinson had mysteriously turned up. 

_(“I consulted a Ouija board,” he’d teased when he first appeared at the remote farmhouse. “The local police station rang me up as soon as the constable heard your name,” he’d explained later, in between questioning the residents. “I didn’t like the look of the weather and I was worried about you,” he admitted, just before dinner.)_

For the first time, there weren’t enough bedroom, let alone beds, to go around. And the weather was vicious enough and the family frightened enough to not give a single damn about an unmarried man and woman sharing a bed for the night. 

For the first time, Phryne realized that Jack didn’t care, either.

The farmhouse was hideously damp and drafty and the sheets on the guest bed were ice-cold, turning the very act of lovemaking into a driving need for simply warmth. 

Phryne clung to him, after, licking the sweat from where it had pooled in the hollow of his throat. “Are you warm, Jack?”

His voice was smoky and soothing in her hair. “With you? Always.”


	256. Zest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Is that my shirt?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Jack studied Miss Fisher out of the corner of his eye, as they examined the corpse. Strange as it sounded, he had long since felt that the impersonal intrigue of a bloody corpse was incomplete without the sparkle and dash of Phryne Fisher to contrast with it. As a feeling human being, he was appalled at the wanton violence before him. As a person whose life was dedicated to solving puzzles, he appreciated the zest she brought to his crime scenes. He was a man of many and varied parts and he accepted that. 

But today there was something off. Not about the corpse, that seemed a standard issue affair. But about Phryne… 

He narrowed his eyes at her throat. “That’s a very interesting collar you’re sporting today, Miss Fisher.”

She didn’t look up from the body but his words warranted a smile. “How kind of you to notice, Jack.”

“Very out of the ordinary for you, though.”

“I never do ‘ordinary.’” Phryne tilted her head to one side, ostensibly to ponder the problem of the hair matted at the back of the victim’s skull, but the movement did give Jack a very good view of the unusual collar, as well as of the side of her throat. 

“Well, there’s ‘out of the ordinary’ and then there’s ‘high unusual.’ One might even say… masculine…” She slid a glance his way and her green eyes laughed at him. “What possessed you to wear my shirt, and yesterday’s shirt, of all things?”

“The fact that you left it on my bedroom floor last night,” replied Phryne promptly. “And that you left without saying goodbye. I had to have something to remind myself that you’re not a hard-hearted cad, Detective-Inspector.”

They rose as one from their inspection of the corpse. Phryne stooped to dust off the knees of her stockings, but Jack caught her by the elbow and lifted her up, cupping her face in his palm and kissing her soundly, and he didn’t stop until he felt her begin to tremble. Oh, he did like having that effect on her. “I did _not_ leave without saying goodbye this morning,” he corrected her, tugging the collar of his purloined shirt. “But you definitely didn’t hear me. You were asleep.”

“Hmm. A likely story. Not enough to get your shirt back, though.”

“You’re welcome to keep it,” he rumbled, ducking to press a quick kiss to the side of her neck. “Unlike you’d like me to make an effort to win it back.”

Phryne’s eyes smoldered so hot, he could feel them burning all the way down to his toes. “Well, Jack,” she purred. “You’re quite welcome to try.”


	257. Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry, I can’t.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Their kisses were becoming more heated the longer they sat pressed together in the window seat. Jack’s tie was already dangling from one of the bookshelves across the room, and Phryne was in his lap, trying to undo his buttons in between mapping the lay of his mouth. “Wait,” he gasped, stilling her hands. “Phryne, wait.”

She smiled breathlessly at him, her eyes alight with desire and laughter. He loved that look, loved how vibrant she was in everything she said and did. “To the boudoir, Jack?”

“In a moment. Phryne… we need to talk about this.”

In an instant, all her playful lusty vitality was gone, replaced by a wall of fashionable nonchalance that allowed for no admittance. “There’s nothing to talk about, darling.”

“There is. And we can’t keep putting it off.”

“Jack…” An expression flickered briefly across her face and then vanished, but Jack caught it: a look of frightened frustration. “We’ve had this discussion. What we do best, together, is… it means the world to me.”

“And to me,” he said, very low and serious. 

“But I already told you, I’m not going to give up who I am for you. I’m-I’m desperately fond of you, Jack.” She curled her hand more tightly into his shirt. “I might even… I don’t know if I can say it. But it’s there. But I’ll be damned if I let that ruin my life again.”

“Phryne, that’s not—” 

“And if you expect me to promise any sort of exclusive commitment, then you’re—”

“Damn it, I don’t _want_ commitment!” he exploded suddenly. The aftershock of his exclamation hit them before the import of his words; Phryne twitched, her muscles trained by experience to expect blows to follow words and tensing to defend herself; Jack blanched and pushed her off his lap. He stalked over to the mantel and pressed both his hands to its smooth surface, as though his entire weight was hanging on for dear life. 

“I don’t want that,” he said again, after a long few moments where the tension in the room thickened and congealed until it was hard for either of them to breathe. His voice was hoarse, with tears, she realized. “I don’t want you to make me that promise when we both know you can’t keep it. I don’t want you to bind yourself to something that you were never meant for.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “I had commitment. For sixteen years. We weren’t free, and it tore us to pieces. I don’t want that for you.”

Phryne looked at him in stunned, agonized silence. She had been anticipating a request from him for some time, to at least attempt being exclusive partners, and had been contemplating how to tell Jack, whom she truly did love, a gentle but firm ‘no’… but she hadn’t been expecting this. Not from Jack. “Come here,” she said finally, holding out her hand. 

He swallowed and turned away. She watched the muscles of his arms and back tense over and over again, as he tried to regain his composure. At last he let go of the mantel, and took her hand instead. His fingers were warm and strong and gentle, as always. Phryne kissed his cheek softly. “I don’t want that for _either_ of us,” she said. “And as long as we are together, for however long this lasts, we’ll make sure it won’t. It’ll be a job of work, but… we do work well together.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed. All the tension drained away from his body, and were it not for Phryne’s hand in his, he felt as though he might have fallen. “We do, at that.”


	258. Blurred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You can’t do this here, this is my workplace!” (Jack/Sam) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> This is the goddamned silliest thing...

When Jack got to the station, he was surprised to find that the door to his office was unlocked. And deeply concerned that he could see a figure through the frosted glass, the blurred image of someone sitting at his desk. 

It was very early. No one was at the desk. None of the morning constables were yet on duty, and the night shift was still downstairs with last evening’s guests in lock-up. Jack tossed his hat onto a filing cabinet, set down his briefcase, and shucked off his coat, retaining only his revolver from the inside pocket. He had tested the doorknob already, so whoever was inside knew he was there. 

He checked his gun to make sure it was loaded, and took a deep breath to steady himself. It might be an innocent misunderstanding. He wasn’t sure _how_ but it might be. He did not want to go in shooting. 

He closed his eyes, seeing the layout of his office clearly in his mind. The desk, the chair, the person in the chair, and the heavy metal safe and cabinet behind the desk, from which a bullet could easily ricochet… 

“Damn it, Jack, are you doing to make me wait in here all morning while you fiddle about?”

Jack’s eyes shot open. “What the… _Sam?_ ” He kicked the door open with the toe of his shoe and stood gobsmacked for a second, before spinning round and slamming the door shut again, and locking it for good measure. “What the hell are you doing?”

Sam leaned back in Jack’s chair, his hands behind his head, grinning like the live-today-die-tomorrow rascal he was, sporting not a single stitch of clothing. “Waiting for you to show up. Obviously.”

“Sam, you can’t do this here. My house or your house—or Phryne’s house—by all means. But _not_ in my office. If someone walks in on us, the _least_ that will happen is that I’ll lose my job, and as to the worst—” Jack paused. Something else, besides the gorgeous naked man in his desk chair, was not quite right about this scenario. He held his breath for a moment, listening, and then dropped his head into his hands. “Phryne’s under the desk, isn’t she? That’s how you got in here.”

Sam let out a noise that was half-laugh and half-groan, and reached down to stroke the head of the woman currently doing lovely things to his cock with her mouth. “Sorry to disappoint you, Jacky, but I didn’t come here to debauch you. This time. Just wanted a little edge to the morning.”

“Good.” Jack walked over and planted a kiss on Sam’s lips, then reached down and stroked Phryne’s hair tenderly. “In that case, finish up and get the hell out, both of you. I have work to do.”


	259. Deploy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Could you just wait a minute?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“It’s no good, Phryne,” Jack said, when they were alone in his office with the autopsy report.

“No?”

“No. I confess: I simply cannot concentrate while you’re sitting there dressed in my shirt.”

She grinned, rather obviously pleased at his admission. “But Jack… I’m dressed in so many other things _besides_ your shirt. How can one garment, and such a demure garment at that, distract you so much?”

His eyes, warm and alive, told the whole story in a moment, without him needing to say a word. But he leaned forward and pressed his lips briefly to her temple before he whispered in her ear, “The intimacy, Miss Fisher, of cloth that has been against my skin, now caressing yours, is intolerable.”

Phryne’s breath quickened and she fought to urge to squirm. Jack’s voice did indecent things to her insides at the best of times. When he chose to deploy that weapon against her, she had to be careful. “And what,” she asked with admirable calmness, “do you plan to do about it?”

“I plan to ask you for my shirt back, Miss Fisher.”

“Simple as that?” Jack smiled and brushed another agonizingly light kiss over her temple. Phryne pouted. “But Jack… if I give you the shirt back… I’ll be quite naked under my coat.”

He glanced down the swan-like line of Phryne’s neck. “Apart from your undergarments, of course.”

“Well, of course. But it’s summer and they’re wonderfully insubstantial.”

“I fail to see the problem, Miss Fisher.”

Phryne let out a shivery laugh. Jack’s lips were a hairs-breadth away from her skin and it was a torment. She loved it when he got into these moods. “In that case, Jack, if I give you your shirt back, and go through the rest of the day in just a coat and my brassiere… how will you repay me?”

He whispered something in her ear, and the description of what he intended to do with her when they were alone in her bedroom, murmured in his husky low voice, nearly made her climax then and there. She rose from her chair. 

“In _that_ case…” She raised her fingers to the top button of his shirt collar, clasped around her neck. “I’ll just be a moment, Inspector.”


	260. Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did you hear that?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by msjasbo.

Phryne shot bolt-upright out of a sound sleep, her skin alive and crawling. “What the hell was that?” she gasped, or tried to gasp. What actually came out was something far less intelligible through the booming thunder of the storm over head. 

Jack’s hand brushed against her arm and she almost hit the ceiling. “You all right?” he mumbled. The mattress shifted as he rolled over and pushed himself reluctantly into a sitting position. 

“I thought… I thought I heard something,” she started. Her mind was not entirely awake yet and every shadow in the room looked like a monster from her past. Phryne huffed out a weak laugh. “Probably the cat.”

Gently, Jack wrapped his hands around her shoulders. “The cat’s in Jane’s room, as usual, and he’s terrified of thunderstorms.” He kissed her hair. “But I didn’t know you were.”

“I’m not… sometimes they remind me of barrages, but I’m honestly not afraid of them. But something woke me. A noise…”

“You had a dream, Phryne.”

“No, I… did I?”

“Yes. I’ve been up for the last hour, and the only things I’ve heard have been the thunder and the rain.” Another thunderclap deafened them, and she felt Jack shudder beside her. “You see, I _am_ afraid of thunderstorms.”


	261. Well-Cut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Are you flirting with me?” (Jack/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.

He does it every time Bert ends up in his office. Chucks the pen, one leg up on a drawer, big hands folded loosely over his waistband, and leans back in his chair to eye Bert with something like a challenge. 

“Tryin’ t’ scare me off, Inspector?” Bert asks one day, after he’s brought a message from Miss Fisher that was too sensitive to go over the telephone. He gestures at the unmissable and unmistakable bulge in the well-cut blue trousers. “Or tryin’ t’ impress me?”

Jack doesn’t even glance down, just raises an eyebrow. “Why, is it working?”

Bert licks his lips. It’s all the answer Jack needs.


	262. Parallel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Green-eyed monster.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by damnbrunettes.

Phryne raised an eyebrow. “Is that _really_ how your brother officers refer to me?”

Jack snatched the letter out of her hand. “Possibly. One or two of them.”

“How rude! I’m hardly a personification of envy.”

“You are all that women aspire to be and all that men aspire to have.” He reached for his tea. “And you’re a bloody nuisance. Ergo…”

She laughed slightly and perched on the edge of his desk. “I doubt the whole of either sex envies me for those particular reasons.”

“Hmph. Well, possibly there are men who aspire to be you and women who aspire to have you,” Jack conceded, with an invisible smile. 

“And possibly there are both women _and_ men who envy me for… rather more practical reasons,” Phryne suggested, leaning a little forward. Jack’s eyes dipped instinctively to her cleavage, then flickered back up to her lips and finally to her eyes. 

“Well. Possibly there are men and women who envy me, Miss Fisher. For… parallel reasons.”


	263. Grub

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sweetheart, what did you bury in the garden?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Jack stood in the driveway next to Wardlow, staring into the back garden and frowning. “Penny for your thoughts, darling?” Phryne asked, coming up beside him and slipping her arm through his. 

“There is a lump under the wisteria.”

“A… lump?”

“Yes. Of newly-turned earth.”

Phryne squinted. “…How can you tell? There are so many flowers on that bush I can barely see the branches, let alone the ground beneath it.”

“Because I spend a good portion of my free time grubbing around in that garden and I know every inch of it.”

“Hmm, yes. Rather like you spend the rest of your free time grubbing around my—” 

“Miss Fisher,” said Jack, with great dignity. “In the matter of… _that_ … I do _not_ ‘grub’. And you are avoiding the subject very carefully, which as a trained detective, leads me to only one conclusion: that you are responsible for that lump.”

Phryne huffed. “Fine. Yes. Guilty as charged.”

“What the hell is it?”

She rolled her lips together. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“No.”

“…Jane’s attempt at beef Wellington.”

Jack blinked. “Ah. That’s… ah.” He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at a passing flock of birds. “Well, that’s probably the best place for it.”


	264. Cascade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Suffering for love is how I have learned practically everything I know.” (Djuna Barnes) (Phryne/Concetta) Requested by heavyheadedgal.
> 
> Picks up from [Chapter 254: Gusto](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/13738011).

Concetta’s bedroom, in the apartment above the restaurant, is spartan, with only the larger bed to denote that she had ever been married. There are no family photographs, no trinkets or treasures, no mementos of her late husband… Everything Phryne sees tells the simple story of a woman who does not trust herself to the care of possessions.

They divest themselves of their clothing slowly, with care, Concetta because she is naturally careful and Phryne because she is not careful by nature. “You’re calmer than I expected,” Phryne smiles, her eyes falling closed at the touch of Concetta’s lips on her throat. 

“You are not my first woman,” is Concetta’s simple reply. “There was a girl, at the convent school, when I was young.” There is pain in her voice, a pain that Phryne still knows and feels in the cold grip of her dreams each night. “But…” She lets her hands wander down Phryne’s torso, stops at the lower edge of her belly. “There are still things I am ignorant of. So much of what I thought I knew… I now know to be wrong… and there was so much pain in the learning.”

Phryne passes a hand over Concetta’s dark hair and pulls the comb from the knot at the nape of her neck. The thick tresses cascade freely down Concetta’s back and over her shoulders and breasts, almost enveloping her. Phryne gently pushes the hair back and presses her small neat breasts to Concetta’s, large and full and warm. “I could say the same thing,” she says, very softly.


	265. Octave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re beautiful when you're angry.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by mollidraws.

_Someday,_ Phryne thought, admiring the clench of Jack’s jaw and the flash of his eyes, _I’ll tell him just how gorgeous he looks when he’s angry._

She usually thought that at some point during all the police interrogations she sat in on. She’d never yet found the opportune moment to make that revelation. It was admittedly odd, even to Phryne herself, how appealing she found him when he got hot under the collar. 

So long as it wasn’t her. That would never be enjoyable, despite the conviction she felt in every atom of her being that he would never lay a finger on her in anger. 

And that was partly why she hadn’t yet been able to tell him. Somehow she didn’t feel that Jack would appreciate knowing how aroused she became when he was struggling _not_ to yell at a suspect or a recalcitrant witness, when his voice dropped an octave and became raspy and just the tiniest bit threatening, when his fingers curled so tightly into his palms that she found the white crescent marks of his fingernails in his skin an hour later. 

Because it wasn’t the anger that made him so attractive, not really. It was how tightly curbed and leashed he kept his temper, as he kept all of his passions, as controlled as possible. 

The beauty came in knowing how and which of those passions to unleash. 

And Phryne… oh. Phryne knew.

Perhaps someday she would tell him.


	266. Butterflies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It’s never too late for tea.” (Mr Butler & Dot) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> This grew out of a late-night Slack conversation. It also grew a bit long. Eh. ;)

Dot Collins paused in the doorway of the kitchen. “I was just about to head home, Mr. Butler,” she said, and then frowned. “It’s a bit late to be polishing silver, isn’t it?”

“Never too late to get a needed job done,” said Tobias Butler, as genial and cheerful as always. “Besides, the quicker we get everything put away and the house shut up against Miss Fisher’s return, the quicker you can get on with settling into your married life. 

“Hmm,” said Dot.

Something in her tone made Tobias stop and consider her for a moment or two. “How about a cup of tea before you go, Dorothy?”

“It’s a bit late for tea,” she smiled, with a pointed glance at the kitchen clock. 

“Nonsense. Never too late for a cuppa.” 

Dot hesitated for a second or two, and then sat down. Tobias rose and put the kettle on, and washed the silver polish from his hands and fetched cups. After they finished with Wardlow, he was planning to head north for a few weeks to see his son Alan, and the truth was, he was nervous. It had been years since he and his boy had spoken, let alone spent time together, and Tobias knew he was stalling, trying to distract himself from the butterflies in his stomach. But on the other hand, Dorothy’s unconvinced ‘hmm’ had reminded him of something important. 

“Dorothy, there’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. I hope you won’t mind a little gentle advice from an old man?”

“Of course not, Mr. Butler,” she said, pleased and a little shy.

“Now, I know you admire Miss Fisher greatly—and so you should. But some of her techniques are, I fear... well, a little advanced for you.”

Dot was beginning to look concerned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there are just things that she can get away with, with her gentleman friends, that a wife shouldn’t be doing with her husband.” Tobias raised his eyebrows rather knowingly. “As a former husband myself, I promise: ask the right way and Hugh will bend over backwards to do whatever you want.”

“I… I’m not sure I know what you mean.” She folded her hands around her empty cup. “There are just things that Hugh and I don’t see eye-to-eye on, and I don’t think we ever will. And sometimes I know that what I need to do is the right thing to do, and that Hugh needs… well, _handling_.” Dot blushed a bit, remembering the time she had faked crying in order to get Hugh out of prison, or coerced Father O’Leary into telling Hugh that women’s role in the modern world was changing. Her feelings about those instances were… mixed. She’d gotten her way in the end, even if she still felt as though she hadn’t played fair. “It works for Miss Fisher,” she pointed out, a bit mulishly. 

“Miss Fisher knows men, Dorothy. She knows how to... well, convince them that they want to do what she needs them to. It’s a very skilled art, and Miss Fisher’s has a good deal of practice.” Mr. Butler paused in the act of pouring out the tea. “As we all know,” he added, his eyes twinkling.

Dot giggled a bit. She adored her employer and tried to emulate her in all the ways that were proper, but there were aspects of Miss Fisher’s life that Dot found exhausting, to say the least. 

“But for a young new bride like you, Dorothy, I would say, simply, be honest with Hugh. _Honestly_ honest. And listen to him being honest as well.” Tobias poured his own cup and then resumed his seat, looking at Dot with all the concern and compassion he would have felt for his own little girl, had he and Aurelia ever had one. 

“You can’t expect to to be able to read each other’s mind right away—yes, it’s a talent that will develop, I promise.”

“I don’t believe in that sort of occultism, Mr. Butler, you know that. And Father O’Leary says—” 

“Never mind what the priest says about the occult. To be frank, I’ve never put much stock in the relationship advice of men who’ve never been in one. Once you’ve been married long enough, once you’re _truly_ comfortable with each other, you’ll start to know what Hugh’s feeling without him needing to tell you.”

“Like Miss Fisher and Inspector Robinson,” said Dot, without thinking. Her eyes widened when she realized what she had said, and she took a hasty sip from her teacup without stopping to add milk or sugar. Her grimace at the taste occupied her for several seconds. 

“It’ll come,” said Tobias gently. “Hugh’s a smart, compassionate young man, even if he is a little hidebound.”

Dot snorted softly. “Growing up with a mother like that, and no father, I’m not surprised.”

Which was a highly interesting statement and brought up something _else_ Tobias had wanted to talk to her about… But that was a discussion for another night. “Tell Hugh the truth,” he said, instead. “What you want out of marriage, what you hope for, how you want to move forward in your life together.” Tobias Butler smiled, feeling the fleeting, warm impression of a strong hand on his shoulder. “And I think I can promise you that he’ll be honest with you in return.”


	267. Buttery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “And what did you mean by it?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack hurried downstairs, trying to tie his necktie as he did so. He was used to coming down Wardlow's staircase at a mile a minute, these days. Most nights he stayed over, he was all but guaranteed to oversleep.

He found Phryne in the dining room, dressed for the morning and leaning against the edge of the expensive mahogany table, perusing a newspaper. “Did I hear the telephone ring?” he asked, kissing her cheek in greeting and reaching for the toast rack.

“About ten minutes ago, yes.”

“Who was it?”

“The superintendent. He wanted to offer his congratulations on your successful handling of the Mason case, and to tell you to take the next week off.”

Jack paused in mid-chew. “You’re joking,” he accused, even though he knew that while Phryne was fully capable of such a fib, she wasn’t often willing to risk his career for the sake of having him all to herself.

“Am not.” She plucked the last slice of toast from the rack and bit into it with a defiant smirk. “Call him yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

He gave her a look and then went to the telephone. 

Five minutes later he was back in the dining room, untying his necktie and looping it around Phryne’s neck to pull her in for a long, buttery kiss. “Let’s go somewhere.”

“Mmm… where?”

“Anywhere. Someplace in the mountains. Somewhere private.”

She smiled and ran a hand through his freshly-pomaded hair, freeing his curls. “Is my house not good enough?”

“Your staff is very discreet, Phryne, but you do have neighbors. As do I. And I have a whole week off. I want to put it to good use.”

“Jack Robinson. I’m almost persuaded that you’re referring to immoral activities.”

“I’m almost persuaded to consider them, Miss Fisher.”

“‘Almost,’ is it...” Phryne planted her palms on the table behind her and lifted herself into a perch on its edge, and if her legs were a bit more spread apart than was proper for a lady, well. She’d never claimed to be proper. “And just what might finish persuading you, Inspector?”

His hands slid under her skirt and closed around her thighs, just above the knees. 

“A lengthy discussion between the two of us,” he said, quite calmly, “in the bed I just vacated.”

Phryne let out a shallow breath. “I think I could cope with that,” she replied, wrapping her legs around his waist.


	268. Fiction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It looks better on you.” (Phryne/Lillian) Requested by damnbrunettes.

Lillian stretched out naked in her stomach on the rumpled satin cover of Phryne’s bed, pillowed her chin on her folded arms, and watched with something like confused awe as Phryne got dressed. “How are you even _real_?” she asked. 

Phryne raised an eyebrow and grinned as she rolled the sheerest of silk stockings up her beautifully-molded legs. “Because fiction couldn’t handle me, darling.”

“I have to admit, if Sam tried to put a character like you in one of his books, I’d laugh in his face and tell him to take you down a peg or two. Make you more realistic.”

“Realistic characters? In detective fiction?” Phryne’s as-yet-unmade-up lips quirked at their corners. “Spoilsport.”

“Even detective fiction has to be a _little_ believable,” Lili retorted, rolling over onto her back and giving Phryne a very lovely view of her svelte figure and soft creamy skin. “I mean, look at you. Everything you pull out of your wardrobe looks amazing on you. Every color, every fabric… things that would look tacky or ridiculous on any other human being look utterly divine on you.” 

She didn’t sound outraged or offended, only contemplative. Phryne was glad, as she considered Lili to be an astonishingly beautiful woman who ought to be draped in sunbeams and painted. And, of course, because Lili had a wonderful habit of fondling her own breasts while she was deep in thought. “I could never wear that dress, for instance,” Lili continued, idly rolling her nipples between her forefingers and thumbs. 

Phryne swallowed. “Which dress?”

“That one, the one you wore last night.” Lili pointed at the sleeveless gown draped haphazardly over the dressing table chair, where Phryne had discarded it the night before. “I could never wear that.”

“Whyever not? That shade of dark blue would look wonderful against your skin, and the fabric moves beautifully.”

Lili twitched one upside-down shoulder in a shrug. “It just wouldn’t look as good on me as it does on you. It’s yours, and no one… no one _inhabits_ clothes the way you do.”

Phryne smiled gently. She wafted across the room to the bed and bent over Lili, caressing her cheek and kissing her softly, and laughing when the position allowed Lili very easy access to her breasts. “Stand up, Lil.”

She picked up the blue dress and slipped it over Lillian’s head and shoulders. “Oh,” Lili sighed, “that _does_ feel nice.”

“Doesn’t it? There’s a reason I generally don’t wear any undergarments with that dress. Well,” Phryne amended, with a knowing drawl, “that’s one reason.” She turned Lili around so that she could see herself in the mirror. “Oh… Lillian…”

Lili’s skin glowed like sun-warmed sand against the rich dark blue silk. Her light brown hair tumbled loose about her shoulders, and her cheeks and her smoky blue-grey eyes were still flushed with sleep, bringing a lovely soft color to complete the image of a vibrant, sensual woman.

One of the straps slipped down Lili’s arm, making her flush. “It’s too big,” she muttered, trying to hoist the neckline higher. 

“That’s merely cosmetic. Dot can take the dress in for you.” Phryne considered the reflection before her. “No… darling, in all honesty, this looks far better on you than it does on me.” She bent and pressed a kiss to Lili’s bared shoulder. “And I would never say such a thing lightly,” she added, smirking.


	269. Gallant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What a thing to say, and on my birthday!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“Not here, Miss Fisher,” Jack growled, his eyes darkened as she backed him against his desk. “Wait, for God’s sake.”

“No,” she purred, and kissed him. Jack’s mouth was suddenly flooded with the familiar new decadent taste of her. He began to shuck out of his jacket as fast as he could. 

“‘No,’ indeed,” Phryne chided him, making quick work of the buttons on his waistcoat. “And on my birthday, too, Jack. It’s _so_ ungallant of you.”

“On the contrary, Miss Fisher,” he retorted, trying (not very hard) and failing (utterly) to still her hands. She avoided him neatly and slipped under the panels of his waistcoat to curl her fingers around his braces and hoist herself into his lap. 

“I would have thought…” She ground hard on his erection. “Nngh… That attempting to spare you…” He slipped his hand under her skirt and encountered no undergarments but did find her so wet that his fingers slid into her easily. She moaned silently and clenched around him. “ _Christ_ , Phryne…” Jack’s less-dexterous hand struggled to unbutton his fly. “From a prosecution for indecent exposure…” She took pity on him and helped to pull him out. “Was an excellent birthday present… _oh_.” Phryne sank onto him at last. 

Jack let his head loll back to give her lips more room to work, and stopped talking.


	270. Journalists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Who is [she/he]?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“I had a very interesting letter from Dottie while I was in London,” Phryne commented, after she and Jack had finished greeting one another, first very tenderly, and then as their physical familiarity reestablished itself, very enthusiastically. “Unfortunately it got somewhat mangled during the journey from Australia to England, so I’m not entirely certain that I received the whole story.”

Jack’s brow furrowed attractively. “That was a lot of big words, and I still can’t feel my legs. Can you start over?”

“With words of one syllable?” Phryne smiled and pillowed her cheek on his shoulder. “Dot’s letter… said you got married while I was away. Is there someone else I should know about, Jack?”

She didn’t seriously think that Jack Robinson, of all people, would have remarried in her absence and _then_ come to her bed and fucked her so beautifully, but Dot was not prone to sharing unfounded rumours with her employer. And there were women in Melbourne who would have made Jack very good wives. Phryne had met one or two… So Dot’s letter, half torn by the international trip and the ink a bit blurred in places, had tapped into a plausible fear, one that Phryne had not been willing to consider, until that moment. 

But she had never once imagined Jack’s reaction: he burst into laughter. Helpless, overjoyed, crying laughter, that started with a deep rolling chuckle and finally ended with high-pitched uncontrollable giggles that left him twitching on the bed. “Oh my _God_ ,” he managed to wheeze at some point. “Oh God, Phryne… I am never going to hear the end of that…”

“Wait, so it’s _true_?”

“No! No, not a bit of it.” Jack hauled himself into a sitting position, wiping his eyes and struggling to gain control of himself. “Right, so, about two months ago, I had a murder case dealing with the death of a popular singer’s lover.”

“Nightclub?”

“Opera. Sara Carew.”

Phryne’s eyes went wide. “No. The contralto?”

“The same. She suspected the identity of the murderer, a very jealous fan who had sent her threatening letters when she lived in Italy. So we set up a trap to lure him out. Miss Carew and I spent a week or two stepping out on the town together. Very conspicuously,” Jack added, quirking his eyebrows.

Phryne smothered a giggle. “And then what? You staged a fake wedding?”

“Oh God, no, nothing so ridiculous. The society papers started linking us up, and then one of them erroneously reported that we’d been married, and the rest of them just ran with it. Hugh and Dot were outrageously amused, although Dot did try to hide it.”

“She’s always so thoughtful. So? Did your plan work?”

“Like a dream. I was nearly assassinated in front of about fifty theatre people by a love-crazed lunatic with an antique dagger. I stepped out of the way, Miss Carew brained him with a champagne bucket, we took our bows to thunderous applause, and then I hauled the bastard off for booking.”

It was Phryne’s turn to laugh like a maniac. “Oh good lord, and the papers decided to gossip about how you were married instead of taking that and running with it like the farce it was?”

“Hmph.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Journalists.”


	271. Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That CANNOT be comfortable.” (Mac & Phryne) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

The first time Phryne saw her oldest friend in boy’s clothes was at their very first meeting in the streets of Collingwood, when she had rushed into a gaggle of dirty little girls to rescue Janey from some of the neighborhood bullies and gotten in over her head, _fast_.

Ten-year-old Phryne Fisher had only the briefest glimpse of their champion at first, just a patched shirt that had once been white, a set of braces and a pair of threadbare trousers that were most definitely brown, and a shapeless soft cap over a messy cluster of red curls. 

“Thanks,” said Phryne, clinging to her scared little sister with one hand and trying to wipe the blood from her nose with the other. The strange boy, who was tall and slim and freckled, seized Phryne’s chin in his hand, and for a second Phryne thought about giving him a matching bloody nose. 

“Hold still,” the boy grumbled, pulling a surprisingly clean handkerchief from his pocket. Her pocket, Phryne realized, getting a good look at the face under the over-sized cap. 

Phryne’s jaw dropped. “You’re a girl!”

“Got it in one. ‘Ere, hold this here.” She moved Phryne’s fingers further up her nose, and pressed. 

“Ow…” Phryne winced but did as she was told. 

“Me dad’s gonna have the hide off me for gettin’ blood stains all over his Sunday hankie, but oh well.” The keen blue eyes of the stranger narrowed. “You figured that out quick, that I’m a girl.”

“I know how t’ use my eyes. What’s your name?” 

“Liz. Liz Macmillan. What’s yours?”

Phryne wrinkled her nose. “Phryne Fisher.” She tugged one of her sister’s blonde braids. “An’ this is my sister Janey.”

“Why’re you dressed like a boy?” Janey demanded. 

Liz grinned. “Cuz I like it.”


	272. Arrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You can’t stop me.” (Jane) Requested by Anonymous.

Jane brought her bicycle to the starting line, careful not to go over. The tall blond boy from Melrose Grammar was her opponent. He had a red bicycle and she had a green one; both were Arrows. 

“My uncle the cop taught me how to ride,” he told Jane, grinning with a kind of good-natured smugness that made her want to bash his teeth in. “And you’re too short for that much bike.”

She gave his long gangly frame a critical once-over, and rolled her eyes. “At least when I ride, I don’t look like a crane who forgot how to fly.”

His self-important smirk turned mulish. “Say that again after I beat you to the finish line.” 

They bent over their handle bars and waited for the handkerchief to drop. 

The instant the cloth left the referee’s hand, Jane was off like a shot, riding the way Jack had taught her. “Don’t worry about what’s behind you,” he had reminded her, time and again, “there’s nothing you can do about what’s behind you. Just concentrate on what’s in _front_ of you. The next foot, the next ten feet, the next half-mile. Keep your eyes open and nothing in front of you will stop you. Feel the ground through the tires – feel how the air changes around you – and adjust, and keep going.”

_Just keep going,_ Jane though, racing ahead. The cheers and jeers of their schoolmates disappeared into the wind. _This is nothing… Tom’s nothing… no dad’s nothing… growing up with nothing is… nothing… just keep going._

She sped across the finish line and looked over her shoulder, and laughed. Tom was at least half a minute behind her. “Didn’t I say you looked like a crane who forgot how to fly?” she teased, when he finally made it over the line. 

Tom’s thin shoulders heaved as he tried to catch his breath. “Yeah, you did.” He scrubbed a hand through his damp curls, and then offered it to Jane. “Well done, Ross,” he said, with a rueful little smile. 

His eyes were very blue and to Jane’s surprise, very sincere in their congratulations. “Thanks. You weren’t so bad. Your uncle the cop’ll be pleased.”

“Um… yeah. Maybe I should actually start listening to him,” Tom muttered, his high cheekbones pinking a little.

Jane grinned. He wasn’t such a bad boy, she decided, when he stopped trying to be better than her.


	273. Potato

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You promised me you wouldn’t laugh.” (Aunt Prudence and Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.

Bert had promised, and he liked to think of himself as a man of his word, so when Mrs. Stanley stepped out in the oat-coateer dress or however Miss Fisher said those French words, he behaved and kept his mouth shut. Not that he was feeling much like laughing.

The old woman eyed him suspiciously. “Well, Albert?”

That was the trouble of coming up in the world, he said to himself. People started to have expectations of you. Like Mrs. S. Ever since her boy Arthur had passed on, Mrs. Stanley had started to treat him a bit more familiar-like. A bit like family. And truth to tell, he’d always liked her. You couldn’t help liking an old bird who could hold her own against Miss Phryne Fisher. They were a pair, those two... 

“When I said ‘don’t laugh,’ I didn’t mean ‘don’t speak at all’!” Mrs. Stanley smoothed down the front of the royal blue silk. It was a lighter colour than she usually wore, Bert had noticed that much, and it looked good on her. “Phryne dragged me to House of Fleuri for this ridiculous thing, and I should hope they know what they’re doing, but I doubt even the best of French fashion could make anything of a squat little thing like me.”

“‘Ere now, Missus,” Bert objected, finding his voice at last. 

“Oh, don’t bother, Albert.” She turned to look at herself dejectedly in the hall glass. “I look like a potato someone dressed up to go to the opera.”

“Bollocks,” he said firmly. “You look like a million pounds. And…” An unexpected lump came into Bert’s throat. “Actually, I was just thinkin’ that you looked a bit like my mum used to. Not that she ever got t’ wear silk… But you look beautiful. An’ I don’t go outta my way t’ compliment just everybody, y’know.”

That put a smile on Prudence’s face, and wherever she was, Bert felt a bit like his mum was smiling at him, as well.


	274. Amours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Is... Is that what I think it is?!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by whiskeyandjack. (NSFW: sex toys)

Jack wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when he arrived at Wardlow late that evening. Phryne had told him in no uncertain terms that she was entertaining company and that he should make himself scarce. Not in so brusque a fashion, of course, and as the company she was expecting was Dr. Macmillan, he couldn’t complain too much. Mac had been a part of Phryne’s life long before he’d turned up, and he wasn’t interested in ending that. 

But then there had been a late death, and a strange one at that, which meant that Mac would be up over the body all night. “Just go home, Jack,” she’d told him, looking up from her examination of the victim’s skull. “There’s nothing you can do until I figure out how this poor bastard died, so you might as well go help Phryne salvage what she can of her evening.” And then she’d winked at Jack, rather salaciously.

Jack couldn’t help finding it a little bit odd that he was so amenable to the situation he found himself in. _Clearly I’m more liberal-minded than even I thought,_ he mused, grinning a bit as he let himself into Phryne’s house with the key she had given him. It gave him a thrill (not that he would admit it out loud) to be able to let himself into her front door, rather than needing to be admitted by one of her staff, or even by Phryne herself. 

The house was dark and quiet. Mr. Butler was nowhere to be seen and Dot would have long since gone home to her husband. Jack listened for a moment as he hung up his hat and coat, and deduced that Phryne had gone upstairs, where there was still a lamp shining. He made his way quietly up the steps, and silently turned the doorknob into her bedroom. 

The light on her bedside table shone with a sensual warm light through its stained-glass shade, casting a multi-hued glow onto Phryne’s naked body as she lay on her back, asleep on top of the purple-and-gold counterpane. Her eyes were closed, her arm was thrown haphazardly over her head in slumber, and her hand was curled lightly around the beautifully-crafted stuffed leather dildo fastened round her with thin leather straps, resting with its base nestled in her dark pubic hair. 

Jack's Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed, hard. She must have fallen asleep waiting for Mac, he realized, after a moment. He knew they sometimes used what Phryne referred to with coy delicacy as “aides d’amours” and he had seen the devices strewn about among Phryne’s things, but seeing one in situ and waiting did strange and not-unpleasant things to Jack’s insides. 

He crossed the room and went to the wardrobe. He pulled off his tie and hung it and his jacket on the clothes horse, and after a moment, he added his waistcoat. He toed off his shoes, unclipped and removed his socks, and then padded back to the bed and with great care and attention, closed his hands around Phryne’s ankles and slid his palms up her lithe, exquisitely-molded calves and up her lean thighs

The familiar touched roused Phryne from her legendarily deep slumber. Her brow furrowed in a delicate frown and then her eyes opened, and when she beheld Jack, her frown deepened for a second or two before she smiled, a warm drowsy wicked thing. “You’re not Mac.”

“Mac sends her regrets,” Jack murmured, his eyes dark. He held Phryne’s gaze for a moment or two and then lowered his mouth to the dildo, and licked a long, slow stripe up its underside. 

Phryne couldn’t feel a thing, of course, but she could see, and the sight produced a low and hungry moan. “In that case, Jack, I’ll just have to make do with you.”

And she reached for him.


	275. Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Midnight, on the bridge. Come alone.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

He wasn’t surprised when he got the note. He’d been expecting something of the sort, given the recent... unpleasantness with Sidney Fletcher. What surprised him was the note itself. It was unsigned, but he couldn’t fail to recognize the handwriting. 

Princes Bridge was a good place for a clandestine meeting. Not precisely desolate, not even at midnight, but if one or two people stood at the railing in the center of the bridge and looked out across the waters of the Yarra, and kept their voices down and their eyes open, they would have ample opportunity to see anyone who might approach, and modify their conversation accordingly. 

Miss Fisher was already there when he arrived, leaning her elbows on the broad stone barrier. The moon was full. It would not be so tomorrow night. He wondered if he would see it. 

He took his place beside her. The fox fur collar of her coat brushed against the heavy wool of his trench coat's sleeve. He could just barely feel the softness of it. 

"Sidney Fletcher asked to speak with me today," she said, after a time. "He had some information... which he says you are already aware of, and which has apparently had no effect in convincing you to drop the charges against him. He thought might convince me to convince you."

"Hmm. And what is your decision?"

"That depends, Inspector. Why did it not sway you? Surely Fletcher knowing what he knows... could make life very difficult for you."

A soft snort. "It could, yes. But he apparently neglected to mention that it could make life very difficult for him as well."

"You could be shot."

"So could he."

He felt Miss Fisher tense beside him. "You were in it together."

"I was sent to Fletcher in nineteen-nineteen. I assumed I would be reporting to him during my... stay... in Melbourne. But that was the first and last time I saw him, until he turned up in George Sanderson's hospital room, engaged to my ex-wife."

"To Jack's ex-wife."

He tipped his head in silent acknowledgment. "Whatever I was sent here to do... whatever information I might have been gathering... it quickly ceased to matter. None of it mattered," he whispered, bitterly. "And I could not go back. So I stayed. I did what was expected. I lived the life that was waiting for me. And it became my life. The police work became my work. The Fatherland... is another land, now. It is past. It is done."

She turned to regard his profile in the moonlight. The details of his face were hidden in the shadow of the brown fedora. "And you knew nothing of Fletcher's other concerns?"

"I knew nothing of any of his concerns. But if he's so willing to throw me to the wolves, why should I have any loyalty towards him? A man who sells children."

"You shouldn't. But..." The white brow furrowed beneath the corded black beret. It was an expression he was very fond of, but then, he had become accustomed to and therefore fond of the full range of her expressions. "There's something else."

His fingertips dug hard into the stone railing. "It is enough to despise him for his actions. But... in that other land, Miss Fisher, are two young woman who were once small blonde girls, too young to know my face if they saw me again. But I remember their faces... and I saw their faces on every one of the children we took from the hold of the _Pandarus_." 

Miss Fisher was silent. But it was the silence of perfect understanding between partners. There was nothing condemnatory or accusing about it. After a moment, he felt her gloved hand rest briefly over hers. "I will instruct my solicitor to suggest to Mr. Fletcher that, given his circumstances and the nature of the information, making it known would not be in his best interests."

"And that's putting it mildly," said her companion, in his dry way. "Will that be all, Miss Fisher?"

"One last thing... What happened to him? To the real Jack."

The man calling himself Jack Robinson sighed and raised her hand to his lips. "I wish to God I knew," he said huskily. "Then perhaps he could return to his life, and I to mine."

He turned on his heel and strode off into the darkness, feeling Miss Fisher's eyes following him until long after he had vanished from her sight.


	276. Pre-Raphaelite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Do you love me?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Jack returned from the bathroom in just his trousers, with a towel draped around his neck, and smiled. "Hello, lady in repose."

Phryne gave him a pleasantly content and drowsy smile in return. "Hello."

"Did you sleep well?"

"Once you let me fall asleep, mmm, yes, very well."

"Me?" Jack paused in the act of toweling his hair dry. "I beg your pardon, Miss Fisher, but my recollection is that it was you keeping me up until almost dawn."

She shrugged. "I stand corrected. ...Though I'll be very surprised if I'm able to stand at all, after the pounding you subjected me to."

Jack sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss her mouth, first at the corners and then edging his way to the middle of her soft pink lips. "I don't remember you complaining at the time," he rumbled. 

"And I'm not complaining now. Merely stating a fact." Phryne smiled and ran her hands through his damp wavy hair, relishing his kisses the way she would a favourite sweet from childhood, with slow lingering appreciation. She liked the way his lips seemed to cling to hers, and the brief tingle of electricity every time their bodies touched, however innocently. "You're full of surprises, you know. I didn't expect you to be quite so... energetic."

"Was it unwelcome?" he asked, pulling away slightly to frown and watch her face closely. She had never been good at lying to Jack (well, rather, he was just too terribly good at figuring how when she was lying), but she didn't feel the slightest inclination to fib to him now.

"It was more than welcome," Phryne assured him, twining her arms about his neck languidly and offering up her throat and breasts to his adoring mouth. "I do so love a man who's respectful and courteous even in the midst of debauching himself."

He chuckled richly against her throat. "You're maddening, Phryne Fisher," he murmured, not in the least put out. 

'A maddening nymph,' he'd called her last night, and for a moment or two Phryne amused herself with the image of them in some dreamy pre-Raphaelite painting, Jack a knight and herself a nymph granting him favours, with all his armour (in the form of a charcoal-gray wool suit and a dark maroon tie) strewn about them, the deep green plush carpet and gauzy drapes over the windows of the hotel room taking the place of a grassy sylvan glade and sun-dappled leaves overhead. 

"Oh yes, we are in an hotel, aren't we?" she stretched luxuriantly in his arms and yawned, and then reluctantly (and with care) stood up. "I suppose that means we'll have to be frightfully respectable and refer to each other as husband and wife. How tiresome."

"Look at it this way," Jack suggested, grinning up at her from the bed. "We don't have to pretend to be married to _each other_."

Phryne paused in mid-step, and then slowly rotated to face Jack, one hand on her hip. She was stunning and she knew it and he knew it, and all was right with the world. "Jack Robinson, how fun! I knew there was a reason I decided I loved you."

She leaned down and neatly stole his towel, and then tripped off to the en suite bathroom, leaving him stunned in more ways than one.


	277. Dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I think he was angry because we forgot to take food to him. Now we can eat it ourselves.” (Phryne & Dot) Requested by ireallylikeyoualot.

Phryne frowned when Dot returned to the car, basket still in hand. "Wasn't Hugh there, Dottie?" she asked. 

"He was, Miss," replied her assistant primly, settling into the passenger's seat with the lunch basket clasped firmly in her lap. 

Phryne waited. "And?" she prodded, gently, so as not to rouse Dot's temper. It was very well-governed, but it was there, and like most people, Phryne much preferred to see her friends lose their tempers at others rather than at herself. 

"There was someone else behind the desk with Hugh. Some sergeant or other, from another station. He was very free with his comments, Miss." Dot's lips pressed together. "Said that Hugh was a lucky dog to have such a nice-looking sheila bringing him food and how he hoped I'd brought enough for everyone, and he made eyes at me and tried to grab the basket."

"...And then?" Phryne coaxed, knowing that Dot wouldn't have been upset by something as small as that."

"And, when I said no, there was just enough for Hugh and the Inspector, all his nice manners dropped and he scowled at me and called me a dirty tart and tried to grab the basket. Then Hugh punched him. And a good thing, too!" Dot added indignantly. "If my hands hadn't been full, I'd've whacked him one myself!"

Phryne grinned. "Surely that more than earned Hugh his lunch!"

"Oh yes. But now both he and the Sergeant are in lock-up, and Inspector Robinson has to do their booking paperwork, so no one has time for any lunch. But he said that if we could come back at supper time, they would both be free to eat." Dot looked down at the laden basket and sighed. "Some of this won't keep until this evening."

"Hmm." Phryne started the car. "Well then, Dot, I suppose a picnic for two is in order."

The angry flush was subsiding from Dot's cheeks now, and when she smiled, she looked quite herself.


	278. Temptation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Those are my and your mother’s handcuffs.” (Phryne/Jack) For ladygrayluvs & bill0014.

Jack could hear the commotion from the sidewalk. He stood looking at the elegant front door of Phryne Fisher’s house, listening to the shouting and the thumping of small feet pounding up and down the stairs, and sighed. 

He mentally girded his loins and walked up the path, onto the porch, and opened the door. A sixth sense warned Jack to brace himself, and it was a good thing he did, because a small black-haired blur slammed into his legs the second he stepped into the foyer. 

“Jack, hold him!”

Swiftly he caught the small boy by the shoulder before he could get away, and scooping him up by the legs, hoisted him upside-down into the air. “Dad!” Five-year-old Anthony giggled, squirming and thumping the back of his head against Jack's thigh. “Leggo!”

“Don’t you dare,” Phryne retorted, getting up from where she had apparently tripped and fallen into the Italian floor tiles. “You’ve apprehended a very cunning thief, Jack. The last thing we want is for him to get away.”

“Is that so?” Jack looked down at his adopted child. A pair of startlingly bright blue eyes gazed up at him, the picture of innocence disheveled. “And what have you nicked this time, my son?”

“Nothin’!”

Jack narrowed his eyes at the boy. “Anthony, don’t make me use your full name.”

Anthony’s face paled. “Don't say it!”

“Because you know what happens if I say it.”

The boy nodded worriedly, his curls bouncing in abandon. “No cake tonight.”

“That’s right. Now. I’m going to set you down, and you are going to return whatever your mother says you’ve stolen, to her, at once. Understand?”

Anthony nodded again, and Jack turned him over and set the child down on his feet, and steadied him for a moment so that he could regain his sense of balance. He looked up at his mother, who flicked her fingers in a ‘hand it over’ gesture. The child sighed heavily and reached into his pocket, and to Jack’s horror and amusement, pulled out a set of padded handcuffs. 

“Oh dear Lord… Anthony. _What_ have we told you about rummaging around in your mother’s room?”

“…Not to.”

“And what did you do?”

“…Rumm’ged in Mumma’s room.”

“Do you think you deserve cake tonight?”

“Yes.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at his son. “And why is that?”

The boy looked almost beatific. “‘Cause Mumma didn’t lock the door, so I scummed to temptation, so it’s not my fault!”

Phryne made a strange choking noise; Jack bit the inside of his cheek. “All right, little sinner. Go into the kitchen and ask Mrs. Collins to give you a biscuit. Nicely. But Anthony.” Jack tilted his head to one side and looked at Anthony. Anthony gulped. “From now on, you stay out of your mother’s room _always_ , unless she gives you permission. Understood?”

“Yessir.”

“And?”

Anthony turned and, out of Jack’s view, gave his mother a sheepish grin. “Sorry, Mumma.”

Phryne held the handcuffs securely with one hand and ruffled his black curls with the other. “As well you should be. You’re far too young to succumb to that kind of temptation.” Kneeling down, she whispered something in her son’s ear. Anthony’s eyes went wide. 

“Yes’m!” And he bolted for the kitchen. 

Jack hung up his hat and coat in bemusement. “What on earth did you say to him to get that kind of reaction?”

Phryne’s smile was wry and somewhat at her own expense. “I told him that I knew perfectly well I’d locked the bedroom door this morning, and that if I ever caught him lying to you again, I’d take away his picklocks.”

“…You taught our son to pick locks. He’s five.”

“And a very fast learner.”

“Clearly, if he’s already ‘scumming’ to the temptation of locked treasure rooms.” 

“That’s what we get for letting Dottie take him to Mass.”

“God help us when he’s old enough to realize why you keep handcuffs in your bedroom…”

Phryne gazed at him with a familiar expression of beatific innocence. “Why Jack. For police work, of course.”


	279. Verisimilitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my, that’s… large.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“This is silly, Phryne,” Jack complained, not for the first time. 

“I know,” she agreed, rummaging around in her dressing table for more of the the biggest, gaudiest costume earrings she could find, “but isn’t it _fun_?”

“For certain values of ‘fun’, I suppose...” Phryne tipped his head to one side, removed the plain gold hoop from his ear, and replaced it with something long and spangly. “Oh God,” Jack groaned, “it’s enormous!”

“Oh hush. You’re the one who made the mistake of telling me you actually had your ear pierced for your turn in ‘Pirates of Penzance’.”

“Verisimilitude is important in theatre. And I’m still surprised I had to tell you,” said Jack dryly. “I would have guessed that you’d notice long before now.”

“I’m not accustomed to paying attention to gentlemen’s ears,” Phryne purred, leaning over him and nibbling his earlobe lightly. “Clearly, I need to rectify that.”


	280. Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Please, just don’t.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Phryne lay with her head pillowed on Jack’s chest, listening to the slow, steady thud of his heart and lungs. His hand rested on her hip. It was warm and reassuringly solid. 

“Jack?”

“Phryne.”

“I can’t help wondering... where the catch is.”

“It does feel a bit too good to be true, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” she murmured. “Almost every other man I’ve ever been with... They all seem to think that I should be willing to give something up for them. That because I’ve allowed them into my bed, it therefore means that they’re worth making some sort of sacrifice for.”

“God forbid,” said Jack, his voice soft and grave. 

Phryne curled her fingers over the center of his chest, the tips just barely brushing his skin. “One might almost think,” she continued, “that you would be the man who most deserved such a sacrifice, in return for everything I’ve put you through.”

Jack snorted. He shifted down so that they were facing each other, and the smile that touched Jack’s lips and eyes was tender and impish. “Do you really think I’d ask such a thing of you?”

“...No.” Phryne kissed him and smiled. “But just in case, Jack, darling... don’t.”


	281. Trusty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be?” (Bert & Cec) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Bert pushed his hat back a bit and scratched his head. “You sure this is the right place?” he asked, peering at the house in front of them.

Cec looked down at the scrap of paper on which Inspector Robinson had scrawled an address. “Near as I can figure.” He passed the paper to Bert, who narrowed his eyes and scrutinized it for a moment or two, before snorting.

“Bloody hell, if that’s what comes of fancy grammar school education, I’m thankful my mum kept me outta school an’ learned me my letters at home.” He turned his attention back to the house. “Fancy.”

“You expect Miss Fisher t’ live anywhere that ain’t fancy?” Cec shoved the paper and his hands into his pockets. “She’s gonna have a shock, seein’ us. She was expectin’ the Inspector.”

“Well, Robinson wasn’t in any condition t’ go on a long ocean voyage.” Bert brushed some dust from the shoulder of his new jacket, a far more appropriate garment for a cold London winter than his trusty old cotton duster. “Not even a cushy one.”

They mounted the steps of the townhouse together. “You think she’ll come home?” Cec asked. 

Bert couldn’t help looking around them in suspicion. His skin itched and crawled with the wealth of the neighborhood. He felt hideously out of place; Cec was too anxious to notice. “She’ll come. Question is, can Robinson hang on long enough fer her t’ get there.”

They knocked on the door.


	282. Stubborn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You made this?” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Digging around in the bureau in the spare bedroom that Jack used as a catch-all junk room, Rosie’s fingers encountered among the moth-eaten old linens, not the smooth worn wood of the hinged chessboard that doubled as a box for the chessmen, but a surface of dented metal. 

Rosie drew out a small, battered old tobacco tin. The box was round, about the size of her palm, and whatever the contents were, they rattled when she shook the box gently. 

She frowned, considering the small box in her hand. Jack had smoked a pipe in his youth, largely because his late, much-loved father had smoked a pipe. He had switched to cigarettes during his time in the trenches, but after his return from France, he had sworn off tobacco entirely. Part of Rosie wondered if he had taken up smoking again since the divorce, but something told her that this little tin was not part of the present, but part of the past. 

“It’s all right,” came Jack’s voice, wistfully, from behind her. Rosie turned and found him standing in the doorway, watching her with soft eyes. “You can open it.”

She blushed a little at being caught prying, but he didn’t seem at all upset. The screw-top of the tin was rusty and stubborn, but at last it yielded to Rosie’s fingers. 

Inside the tin, she found dozens of small, delicate flower buds, the size of her thumbnail, all carefully crafted out of bits of wood. “Jack,” she whispered, tears beginning to sting her eyes. “These are beautiful... You always did like to fool around with a carving knife, when we were young.” She wiped her eyes with her fingers and held out the tin to him. “But why did you hide them away?”

Jack came and hugged her close. “Because every one of them was a letter I couldn’t write.”


	283. Makeshift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Exactly what _can_ you do with a garter?” (Phryne/Jack) For izzyandlouie, who wondered what Phryne could do with a garter (apart from the obvious) in terms of her detecting skills.

Jack and Phryne aimed their guns at the fleeing suspect’s legs and fired simultaneously. “Damn!” Jack snarled, remembering that they were both out of bullets. “Get in the car, quick!”

Phryne ignored him. Instead, she hiked up her skirt and slipped her garter down her shapely leg. “Hold this,” she ordered, shoving the elastic lace band into his hands and stooping down to pick up a rock half the size of his fist. She grabbed the garter back from him, tied a quick knot in one end to create a pocket, slipped the stone into the makeshift slingshot and whirled it around her head. 

The rock sang through the air and hit the suspect hard in the back of the thigh. With a curse, he went down on the dirt road. 

Jack looked at Phryne in amazement. She grinned broadly. “I’m _so_ glad that worked.” 

They apprehended the suspect and brought him, limping, to Jack’s police car. “I’m afraid I’ll need to confiscate this weapon, Miss Fisher,” said Jack, taking the knotted band of pale pink lace from her coat pocket. 

She raised an eyebrow at him. “For evidence, Inspector Robinson?”

“Afraid so. Although how I’m to explain this in my report without it sounding like cheap detective fiction,” Jack continued, very dryly, “I’ve no idea.”


	284. If

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If any person wants to see clearly just how much she has changed - whether for better or worse - let her revisit after some lapse of time any place where she has once lived. She will meet her former self at every turn, with every familiar face, in every old recollection ... She will see how much she has gained in some respects, how much she has lost - irretrievably lost - in others.” (L.M. Montgomery) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> A bit of a follow-up to [Chapter 281](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/14093711).

Phryne wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and gazed out the window at the sheeting rain. “I should never have gone to London,” she murmured, knowing that saying so aloud would make no difference. “I shouldn’t have gone, and I shouldn’t have come back… nothing’s the same anymore.”

A strong hand appeared in the periphery of her vision, holding a tumbler of whisky. “I know the feeling, I’m afraid,” said Jack quietly. 

She took the glass and gulped down the contents. The cheap boarding house liquor burned its way down her throat. By the time it reached her stomach, it was little more than a glowing warmth. 

“Thank you, Phryne. For coming home. I didn’t expect to need your help quite so… dramatically… but I’m very glad you were here with me.”

“If anyone else had asked, Jack, I would’ve told them to sit and spin. But I suppose I should’ve expected you to get into trouble without me around to look out for you.”

“If you knew how many times I thought the same thing about you…” His words died away as his hands slid over her shoulders. “There are troubles coming, Phryne.”

“More than you realize,” she said, remembering the dark things she had heard during her stopovers in Europe. She turned to face him. “But I’ll be here, if…”

He touched her face gently. “If?”

His fingertips were light but the touch felt deep and anchoring. “I’ll be here, Jack,” said Phryne steadily, reaching up to pull his head down to hers, “if you’ll be here.”

The boarding house bed was narrow and hard, and the sheets were musty and frigid, but Phryne didn’t notice any of it. There was only Jack, and for the moment, with the world teetering on the brink of something wordless and terrifying, it was enough.


	285. Distracting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re giving me this look again.” (Jack/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.

Bert felt Jack’s eyes on him. No surprise, that, since they were both naked and in bed, and he wasn’t about to tell the cop to quit staring at him, but Jack’s eyes had weight to them that Bert could feel even when his own eyes were closed. “You’re givin’ me that look again, Robinson.”

Jack chuckled, not even a little abashed at being called out. “What look?”

“Like you’re thinkin’ about somethin’.”

“I think about a lot of things.”

“Hmph. I think you spend too much time thinkin’ about things, Inspector.” Without opening his eyes, Bert reached up and pulled Jack down for a kiss. 

Jack’s laugh rumbled through Bert’s skin. “Getting a bit bold, are we, Albert?”

“Well, you’re too busy ‘thinkin’ t’ bother tellin’ me why you’re staring at me, so I figured I’d distract you.”

“You’re too good at being distracting,” Jack rumbled, sliding his hands up Albert’s arms and pinning his wrists to the pillow. “I forgot what I was thinking about.”


	286. Ruined

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Only with you could I be trapped and aroused at the same time.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by mollidraws.

“You wait in there,” the gangster’s henchman ordered, a gun to the back of Phryne’s neck. 

“All by myself?” she replied, pleased with how calm her voice sounded even as her heart was racing and her muscles were screaming with her to turn and fight. “How do you know I won’t get into mischief?”

“Don’t worry.” The pistol prodded her into the dark, cold room—the house’s larder. “You’ll have company.” A hand on her shoulder suddenly shoved her forward, and she stumbled and fell, too late to stop the heavy wooden door from slamming shut. 

“Clod. And another pair of stockings ruined,” Phryne grumbled, wincing a bit as she got to her knees. 

A voice croaked at her from the corner. “I’m sure… Dot can mend those as well…”

Phryne froze. “Jack?” She crawled towards the huddled body, pulled out a lighter and flicked it on. “Good lord, Jack… so this is where you’ve been.” She touched his bruised, bloodied face gently. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

His eyes were nearly swollen shut, but what she could see of their bright blue smiled at her. Then he squinted in the light of the small flame. “Where did you even get that? Didn’t they search you before they threw you in here?”

“Of course.” Phryne raised her eyebrows at him. “Just not very thoroughly.”

Jack made a noise in his throat. “At least I know I’m still alive,” he groaned.


	287. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LYSANDER (Midsummer)  
> Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,  
> Could ever hear by tale or history,  
> The course of true love never did run smooth. (1.1.134-136)  
> (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Phryne set the basket on Jack’s desk. From under the plain white cloth, she drew out a silver candlestick, which she set in the very center of Jack’s red crocodile-skin blotter. Jack quietly removed the papers from his blotter, while Phryne retrieved a fresh candle. She set it in the candlestick, lit it, set the basket on the floor, and reached for his desk lamp. 

With the electric light extinguished, they sat in the dark quiet of his office. Outside, the evening traffic had almost died away for the night. The candle flickered between them. Jack waited. Phryne sat back in the chair and gazed at him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” Phryne replied, arching an eyebrow. 

“I’m sorry I assumed that you were entertaining another man while I was busy trying to solve a murder,” Jack continued. He met Phryne’s eyes squarely. “And I’m sorry you didn’t trust me enough to tell me right out that the man was your father.”

Her red-painted lips tightened. “I had my reasons.”

“Didn’t I have mine? For assuming—?”

“You should have trusted me!”

“…Did you really just say that?”

“…Damn it.”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right. Pour the wine, Miss Fisher.”


	288. Threat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

“Damn you,” Phryne growled between kisses, fisting her hands into Jack’s hair, “harder.”

“Any harder and I’m going to break your pelvis,” Jack shot back, biting her lips and pushing her thighs back, “or mine.” He ground into her with a deep, almost savage thrust that brought tears to Phryne’s eyes, exactly as she wanted. 

“I want to feel you,” she told him, reaching one hand back to brace herself against the headboard while he fucked her. “I want—I want—Jack!”

He laughed like a demon and kissed her softly. “I’m right here, Phryne,” he murmured, pushing her legs back until she was nearly bent in half. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Not even... _fuck_... if I fly away again?” She canted her hips and wrapped her legs around his back and her arms around his neck, and gasped as he stopped, suddenly, for the pleasure of unhurried kisses. 

“Fly away again and I’ll fuck you like this again.”

“Jack Robinson,” Phryne laughed, “that’s not much of a threat, but it’s a hell of a promise.”


	289. Alien

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What are we going to do about this?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign.

Phryne and Jack sat together in the window seat of Wardlow’s parlour, Jack with his back against the bowed wall and Phryne with her back pressed to Jack’s chest. Her head rested on his shoulder. She wanted to be near him, touching him, but at the same time she needed to be as far from him as possible. He understood. 

It was terrifying, sometimes, how much he understood. 

They had been sitting in silence for what seemed like hours. Perhaps it had been only a few moments. Phryne wasn’t sure. She couldn’t see the clock from where she was sitting. Jack’s hand rested quietly on her Crêpe de chine-covered thigh, and she could have made out the time on his wristwatch if she had tried. But it didn’t seem to matter much. 

“What are we to do, Jack?” she asked, at long last, as evening slid into night. The parlour was dark now. They had asked Mr. Butler for privacy, and he had of course done as requested, not even venturing in to turn on the lights. “What…”

He drew in breath and let out a sigh, the act raising and lowering her head briefly. “Phryne… this isn’t my decision to make. Though I’m… deeply touched that you told me, and asked me.” He squeezed her thigh lightly. “But… there’s nothing I can say.”

“Nothing, Jack?” Phryne gazed out of the window at the street lamps, the people hurrying home, the normal end of day routine of St. Kilda that now seemed very distant and alien. 

“Nothing.” His lips brushed gently over the crown of her head. “Except that whatever you decide, Phryne, I will support your decision. _Whatever_ you decide,” he said again, as though she would automatically doubt him, without the emphasis. “If you were someone other than who you are… if I were the man I was once, I might have more things to say. But I’m not, and neither are you.” 

Phryne twisted round and made herself look at him. It was difficult, in the low light, to make out his face, but she saw plainly the glistening of his eyes and the sad tenderness of his smile. “And,” Jack continued, touching her cheek with his fingertips, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


	290. Scamp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We’re not buying a dog.” (Dot/Hugh) Requested by heavyheadedgal / (Phryne/Jack) Requested by damnbrunettes.

“The inspector for you, Miss,” said Mr. Butler, offering Phryne the telephone. 

“Jack! This is a surprise. You’ve barely been gone an hour! What’s happened? Miss me that much?”

“If I missed you, you’d know it,” his gravelly voice retorted, a bit distorted by the connection. “I need you to come down to the station.”

“A new case?” said Phryne hopefully. It had been rather dull lately, mystery-wise.

“Nothing so mundane. I need you to come here and be peacemaker between the Collinses.”

“That sounds serious.”

“It is seriously annoying. Please get here soon.”

Phryne hung up the phone with a frown and hurried to grab her hat and get to the car. 

When she arrived at the station, she found Dottie sitting in Jack’s office, clutching her handbag and looking strangely upset. Jack was standing in the corner by the coat tree, his hands in his pockets, watching Hugh, who was crouched on the floor and fussing with something. “Morning, all,” she said, cautiously. “What seems to be the trouble?”

Jack turned to her with a long-suffering expression, but Phryne hardly noticed. At that same moment, Hugh stood up, with a tiny yellow puppy in his arms. “Oh…” Phryne cooed, before she could stop herself. 

Jack rolled his eyes and smothered a smile. Dot sat up even straighter. “Hugh… wants to keep it, Miss.”

“Oh. Well, now that is a problem,” said Phryne, very seriously. “Hugh, you know Dot’s allergic to dogs.”

“I know, Miss,” said Hugh, his sweet face a picture of misery. “But she’s so little and sickly. The-the puppy, that is, Miss, not Dottie. If I take her to the animal shelter, I’m afraid she’ll…” He cuddled the pup closer to his chest, and the little dog whined appreciatively and licked his cheek. 

Phryne frowned and lapsed into thought. “There’s always Cec and Alice,” she said slowly, reaching out to stroke the sleek little head. “He won’t turn away a stray in need.”

“Oh no, Miss!” said Dot quickly. “They’ve got three dogs already. To say nothing of all the other wildlife.”

Hugh gazed at Phryne in mute supplication. It was painfully clear that he wanted to keep the little thing, but Dot had made her position very clear. And as much as Phryne considered herself an animal lover, the size of the little pup’s paws showed that she would grow into a _very_ big dog, and there was no place in Phryne’s immaculate expensively-furnished home for such a beast. “Hugh, I’m sorry, I…”

“I’ll take her, Collins.”

Everyone turned to look at the inspector. 

“What? I do still have a house, you know,” he reminded them all dryly. “And a nice big garden, with a fence. I’ll just move the orchids to Miss Fisher’s house, and this scamp will have plenty of room to play.”

“Sir, you mean it?” asked Hugh eagerly.

“Yes, Collins.” Jack’s smile was somewhat strained, but he took the pup without hesitation. “Just mind you be sure and come visit.”


	291. Blush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” (Jane & Phryne) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“…And I’d like to bring her here to visit,” Jane finished, panting slightly in her rush to get everything out. She closed her mouth and tried to catch her breath. Phryne looked at her in stunned silence. “I… I hope that’s all right,” Jane added, feeling the blush mounting to her cheeks. 

“Jane, darling.” A smile suddenly bloomed over Phryne’s face. “It’s more than all right. I would be delighted to have Maggie stay with us for a time.”

The wave of relief Jane felt at that smile was so overwhelming, she had to sit down. “I wasn’t sure if you’d… I mean, I know that you know about Dr. Macmillan, but… Uncle Jack said…” Jane buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath. “I’m not crying,” she insisted, from behind her fingers.

“Of course you’re not,” said Phryne gently, with only a hint of her usual teasing. “So Jack’s known about Maggie for a while?”

“I… mentioned her. A while ago.”

“And what did he say?”

“…That he was happy for me.” Jane looked up. “You’re not upset? I mean, I didn’t think you’d be upset about me, um, liking a girl…” Jane scrubbed her hot cheeks with her palms. “But that I didn’t tell you first?”

Phryne smiled and kissed Jane’s forehead tenderly. “It doesn’t matter in the slightest. You’ve told me now. And now, we need to get a room ready for your friend Maggie.”

“That’s not—um.” The blush came back with a vengeance. 

Phryne’s smile only widened. “We’ll get the room ready. Whether or not she uses it is up to you two.”


	292. Cocky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Perhaps you’ll take me out one day - or do I have to make an appointment?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

There was a particular set to Jack’s jaw when he was angry with her that Phryne had come to recognize, so tight that the muscles of his neck and the veins in his forehead stood out like cords. It was an easy enough tension for her to spot, and to soothe, if she was so inclined. 

But the cocky glint in his eye and his invisible smirk as she slid into her usual chair in his office told her instantly that he had come to realize when _she_ was angry with _him_ as well. 

“Something on your mind, Miss Fisher?”

“Just thinking about last night, Jack. I thought we had a dinner date.”

“No, you assumed that I was free last night.”

“You should have told me you had plans—”

“I tried. You didn’t listen.”

“—especially if they involved another woman.”

Jack’s lips twitched imperceptibly. “You have your leisure activities, Phryne. I have mine.”


	293. Assured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Throw over your man, I say, and come.” (Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West) (Phryne/Concetta) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

Concetta let her head fall back. Phryne’s lips on her throat were soft and assured, as were the fingers that stroked through the dark hair at her lower belly and between her thighs. “Si,” was all she could pant, biting her lips, “si, si…”

The red mouth at her neck smiled. “Jack will be sorry he missed this,” she murmured, in between little nips that took Concetta’s breath away even more. Phryne drew small circles around Concetta’s hot wet center and then laughed when her beautiful lover arched her back and cried out in Italian. 

“Jack will be sorry,” she said again, kissing Concetta deeply, and feeling her own desire flame up when the dark eyes gazed at hungrily her from under heavy lids, “but for the moment, I’m not.”

“Nor I,” Concetta purred, knotting her fingers into Phryne’s dark hair.


	294. Understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Our love is like our music, it’s here and then it’s gone.” (lyric from No Expectations by The Rolling Stones) (Phryne/Mac) Requested by whiskeyandjack.

Somehow the record that Phryne had put on the player in Wardlow’s shuttered parlour when Mac arrived was still playing when she lifted her head from between Mac’s legs, seemingly hours later.

_When you see two women walking hand in hand, just look ‘em over and try to understand: They’ll go to those parties - have the lights down low - only those parties where women can go…_

“Are you _sure_ you have to go off to England again?” Mac asked lazily, reaching down to pull Phryne up, to taste herself on Phryne’s soft pink lips, swollen with her work. “You’ve only been home for a month.”

“Duty calls, I’m afraid,” Phryne murmured, sliding her hands lovingly up Mac’s ribs to cup her breasts. “I left an awful lot of work unfinished in London, so say nothing of leaving a certain detective inspector high and dry. …You could come with me, this time. You know Jack doesn’t mind.”

Mac’s smile was wry but her eyes were longing. “You have to go where you need to be, and so do I. That’s just how it is, Phryne.” She kissed her once more, and then rolled Phryne suddenly onto the fireplace rug. “But not yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics are from Bessie Smith’s recording of the song “Boy in the Boat”, released in 1931.


	295. Charms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It is not sex that gives the pleasure but the lover.” (Marge Piercy) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Phryne sighed and sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. “Jack, my love. You knew from the beginning that fidelity was never something I could promise.”

“Yes, yes… I know.”

“And I can’t promise that there won’t be other men whose physical charms are worth a night away from you. But this man, tonight… he wasn’t worth coming home to find you in this much pain.”

Jack looked at her sadly. “But is it worth it to change who you are, for my sake?”

In one smooth, decided motion, Phryne rose and settled herself in his lap. “I’m not changing for you, Jack Robinson,” she said, with clear-eyed quiet resolution. “I’m taking the best option that’s been offered to me.” She traced her fingertips down his jawline and then kissed him gently. “You’re almost always the best option.”

“And on the rare occasions when I’m not?”

His expression didn’t change, but his voice dropped slightly in timbre. Phryne smiled. “When you’re not, darling, I shall come home at the end of my fun and teach you how to improve.”


	296. Bouquets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He was unconscious when I found him.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“Where’s your father?” Jack asked, when he returned from driving the inebriated Dr. Macmillan home, following the close of the new Mr. and Mrs. Collins’s wedding party. 

“Dead to the world, sprawled face-down on the widow’s walk.” Phryne drew him into the quiet parlour, to the window seat, and curled up next to him. “I had Bert haul him to the guest room.”

“Hmph. Did you cuff him to the bed for good measure?”

“I thought about it,” Phryne said dryly. 

They sat in silence for a long time, letting the energy of the day drain away, trying not to think too much of what awaited them tomorrow. 

“Jack, there’s something I need you to do for me, while I’m gone. I promise,” she added, before he could ask, “it’s not illegal.”

“Thank you for the reassurance,” Jack said solemnly. “What do you need?”

“If you could find the time to visit Janey’s grave... make sure it’s tidy, you know...” She trailed off, feeling tears beginning to burn behind her eyes. _I just found you again, Janey, darling, and now I have to leave you..._ “Aunt Prudence goes there as often as she can, but... I think my sister would have liked you.”

Jack rubbed her shoulder comfortingly, and then Phryne felt something brush across the crown of her head. “I think I can find the time to do that... It’s the least I can do, in return.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s been a difficult few months at work. I haven’t been able to get out to my family’s plot. And Rosie’s out at her sister’s, without a car, so she can’t get up there very often, either. But my cousin Emily goes on Sundays, and she tells me that someone’s been leaving gorgeous bouquets on my son’s grave.”

Phryne went very still.

“Thank you, Phryne,” he murmured, his voice very soft.


	297. Notorious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We’re quite the pair tonight, the widow and the divorcé.” (Jack/Concetta) Requested by the honorablemrsmccarthy.
> 
> Takes place in the same AU as [Chapter 232](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/13562032)

They sat alone in the restaurant, over a simple meal that Concetta had prepared more for the sake of having something to do, than with any thought of feeding herself or her subdued suitor. She toyed with the poached eggs in tomato sauce on her plate. Even Jack, who was notorious for never turning down a chance to eat, was taking an unusually long time to finish his meal. “What will you do now?” he asked finally. “With your grandfather in prison?”

“And my brother.”

Jack shook his head. “Vincenzo will be out of the station by tomorrow morning. There’s nothing we can charge him with, except assault, and Guido Carbone’s isn’t interested in him.”

“No. He has other things on his mind.” She reached for her wine, sipping the rich liquid without entirely tasting it. “I understand something of the girl’s actions. I know you suspected me of my husband’s murder, once… if he had been poisoned, it would doubtless have been by me.”

“If I ever suspected you of Fabrizzi’s murder, it was only briefly.” Jack laid down his fork and pushed the plate aside. “And you accused me of it, once.”

“…Could you blame me? In either case?”

Slowly, Jack let out a low sigh. “No,” he said, at last. “I couldn’t have blamed you. But you didn’t. And now we know who did.”

Concetta’s smile was sad. “Our promise to marry is an old one, Gianni. If your heart has changed, I will not hold you to it.” She watched Jack turn pale. “It is my own fault. I should have taken you to my bed long ago. Instead, you found your way to you hers.”

“You did,” said Jack, very quietly. “And I learned many things there. I learned that Phryne Fisher is an amazing woman, and a wonderful friend. But she has no use for men’s hearts. And mine was taken… long ago.”

“...Gianni?”

He reached out and took her hand. Her fingers, as long as his, rested comfortably in his palm. “Concetta... if I’m nothing else, I’m a man of my word. I promised you a year ago that when we found your late husband’s killer, and once my divorce was final, I would ask you to marry me. I’ve accomplished the first part, and the second.” Jack felt his cheeks beginning to turn hot. “Mio caro, will you be my wife?”

Tears burned at Concetta’s eyes. “Gianni,” she smiled, her vision swimming, “I was beginning to think this day would never come.”

“Then you will?”

“Yes! Il mio uomo stolto, tesoro mio uomo!” she said, flinging her arms around his neck. “Jack Robinson, my Gianni, yes, I will marry you.” She tangled her fingers into his thick brown hair and put her mouth to his. His lips were warm and soft and eager. It seemed an age since she had kissed him. “I love you, Gianni,” she smiled, resting her forehead on his.

“I love you, Concetta,” he murmured, his blue eyes luminous in the low light.


	298. Part One: Honeymoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Serves you right for being such a nosy parker.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> In honor of approaching my 300th drabble (omg), I've planned something a little different -- a three-part ficlet!

His fellow officers welcomed him home with slaps on the back, mountains of paperwork, and knowing sideways glances accompanying polite inquiries about how the honeymoon had been. “You’d better not hear _Miss Fisher_ hear you say that,” he warned, grinning more broadly than he ought to have allowed himself. 

His long holiday with Phryne had certainly felt like a honeymoon, in all things but name. And if everyone from the Police Commissioner right on down to the greenest constable believed that he and Phryne Fisher were bound rather more legally than was the case, Jack was content to enjoy that misapprehension for as long as possible, especially when it allowed him to leave the station at the end of the day and, instead of walking alone to his small bungalow in moody silence, drive to St. Kilda and spend the night with Phryne.

It was still a heady feeling for Jack to arrive at Wardlow and be able to let himself into the house, whenever he pleased. Phryne had given him a key months ago, as a sign of her growing trust in his friendship. Now, though, she insisted he use it. “You have a spot at my table, clothes in my closet, and a place in my bed,” she’d told him, the day after their return to Australia. “It’s time you stopped behaving like a guest, and opened your own doors.”

If he found Phryne on the other side, he’d open every door in Melbourne. 

The house was quiet that evening, when he got home. He hung up his hat and coat and the hall and looked around for his partner. There were slight clatterings and mouth-watering smells coming from the kitchen, and Jack deduced that Mr. Butler was preparing supper. The doors to the parlour were closed, which struck Jack as somehow ominous. The ugly thought crossed his mind that perhaps Phryne was entertaining one of her ‘old friends’ on the parlour chaise, after her long absence... 

The smart thing to do would have been for Jack to retreat to the kitchen and wait for Phryne to put in an appearance. The last thing he wanted, after so many months of warm affection and understanding, was to make light of her trust.

In the end, Jack decided he simply wanted to know if she was in the parlour or not. He crossed to the doors and opened them carefully. 

Phryne was sitting at her desk beside the fireplace, where she usually conducted her private business after breakfast and before joining Jack at the station to raise seven different kinds of hell. Her head was down on her folded arms and, as Jack realized after a moment or two, she was asleep. 

He stepped quietly across the thick carpet and bent over her. A letter protruded from under her hands. Very gingerly, Jack inched it from her unconscious grasp.

She stirred as he read the smudged, inky lines – smudged, he realized, seeing her stained cheeks as she looked up at him – with tears. “Oh God, Phryne,” Jack murmured, rereading her stockbroker’s letter in disbelief. “All of it?”

“A healthy chunk of it,” said Phryne tiredly. She put a hand behind her neck, stretching out the kinks that had formed after she had cried herself to sleep. “Frustration, that’s all,” she added, brushing away Jack’s hand when he touched her tear-marked face in concern. “My solicitor’s been trying to get hold of me for weeks...”

Jack frowned. “But the Wall Street crash was this past October, and you wrote me at the time that your finances were safe. And it’s _March_ now... Did you have that much money tied up in the American markets?”

“More than I realized I did, clearly. I spent most of last year being far too distracted from business.” With a heavy sigh, Phryne rose and took the letter, and locked it in her desk. 

“Phryne, I’m... I’m sorry.”

She smiled lopsidedly and kissed his cheek. “That’s what you get, Jack Robinson, for reading other people’s mail.”

“That’s not what I mean. Phryne—”

She held up a hand. “Jack? Not now.” There was something else on the tip of her tongue. He could see her struggling with it. But at last, Phryne simply shook her head. “Not now.”

Before Jack could reply, Phryne left the parlour. She went up to her bedroom, shut her door, and did not come out again.

Jack ate his supper alone.


	299. Part Two: Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t need a knight in shining armor.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by damnbrunettes.

Phryne didn’t speak to Jack again for two days – not because she didn’t want to – she did – desperately. But she had to regain her footing, she felt, before she could face him again. 

She didn’t go so far as to lock her bedroom against him, though. Her brain said it was prudent; her wounded spirit craved his touch. He came to her bed long after she put out the lights at night and he simply held her. But even that welcome contact was spoiled by her fear that he would speak. That he would ask her questions, offer her help… She didn’t want Jack’s help with this. 

What she wanted, what she _needed_ more than Jack’s sympathy and offers of assistance was to figure out what the hell had happened. How had her nice safe local investments of land, houses, sugar, and beer, gone so terribly wrong? Where in the last year had her cautious experiments in the American markets become so unstable? And why the hell hadn’t her solicitor contacted her in London, where she had been in October, recovering from her record-smashing flight and trying desperately to save her parents from ruin?

Or, Phryne thought gloomily, making her way at last to the office of her stockbroker, perhaps Jill _had_ tried to get a hold of her in London, but Phryne, buried in paperwork and parties and eventually Jack, simply had not noticed. 

_At least I took longer to be ruined than my mother… I got more than a waltz, before I fell._

A gentleman coming out of her broker’s office stopped and tipped his hat to her. “Miss Fisher,” he greeted her, with easy professional courtesy.

It took her a minute to place him. “It’s Sergeant Fitzpatrick, isn’t it?” She’d seen him about the station recently, and he seemed a very watchful, taciturn fellow, but he didn’t seem to be involved in any of Jack’s cases and she’d had nothing to do with him so far. Phryne looked him over curiously. “What brings you here?”

Sergeant Fitzpatrick smiled and set his hat back. “Just making inquiries with Mr. Steffins, ma’am. Good day.”

Phryne frowned as he walked away, wondering. There was nothing to stop a police officer from dabbling in speculations, of course, but it was a lucky man (or woman) who had anything left to speculate with. The Australian markets were stable, for the time-being, but how long they would remain so… well, that was partially what Phryne had come to find out. 

Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the office seething, at her stockbroker, at her father, at the world in general and Jack Robinson in particular. And because he was the nearest thing to hand, he was who she lashed out at, the moment he arrived home that night. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Jack?” she demanded, practically barring him with her body from taking another step into the hall. 

He didn’t bother with any pretext of innocence. “Trying to help.”

“By sending the Fraud squad after my stockbroker?”

“I did not ‘send’ – can I hang up my hat, please?” Jack smoothed his hair back. “Thank you. I didn’t send Fraud after Steffins. I mentioned his name to Sergeant Fitzpatrick in conversation—I started out in the Fraud division and we still keep in touch. Fitzpatrick said there had already been a number of complaints about the firm, so he was going to pay Steffins a visit.”

“Oh, is _that_ all?” Phryne’s voice was like ice, cold and steady, but she felt her chest beginning to constrict, as it had when she’d been a troublesome young girl and her father had shoved her into a dark cupboard to ‘teach her to behave’. It was worse than being whipped – she would rather have a hundred whacks from her father’s belt than ever feel that confined again. And yet here she was, a free woman… and she couldn’t breathe calmly or see clearly. “Then why was Mr. Steffins up in arms and swearing that he would have me and ‘my pet detective’ prosecuted for turning the law loose on him without cause?”

“Probably because he has something to hide, Phryne!” Jack retorted sharply. “Just how far did you get in questioning him about your accounts before he started on you? Maybe because we’re sleeping together and he thinks that makes you an easy target for coercion.”

“Not for long, it won’t, if you don’t mind your own business in future.”

“Damn it, Phryne, I am trying to _help_. Steffins is clearly crooked—”

“And what if I don’t _want_ your help?” Phryne shot back. “You’re practically the reason I’m in this mess in the first place!”

“Oh, of course.” Jack spread his hands wide in mock understanding. “It’s my fault, because of all your money that I refused to take and spend like mad. My fault. Clearly!”

“Do you think this is a joke? Jack, I have _staff_ to pay. Charities to support—my parents to support—” 

“No, I don’t think it’s a joke,” he said bluntly, “but I also don’t appreciate being told that I’m the cause of a widespread financial crisis and having blame put on my shoulders that I don’t deserve!”

“Oh, so this is all my fault, because obviously the poor little rich girl must be completely irresponsible with her money—” 

“For God’s sake, Phryne—”

“Get out.” 

They stared at each other, counting the seconds. 

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night,” Jack spat. He turned on his heel, walked out the front door, and slammed it so hard, the stained glass panes rattled in their frames. 

Phryne stared at the space he had vacated. “Damn,” she said, faintly.


	300. Part Three: Failing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough.” (Terry Pratchett, ‘The Truth’) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign.
> 
> Six months. Getting close to 100K words. Three hundred drabbles and ficlets. And too many thank-yous to count. 
> 
> Here's to the next three hundred. ♥

It was well after midnight when Phryne, curled in one of the parlour chairs and contemplating the struggling flames in the fireplace, heard the sound of a key in a latch, and then the sound of the front door opening gently, and then closing. She looked up from the fire and saw Jack standing in the parlour doorway, his hands folded before him, watching her. For a long time, there was silence. 

“You forget your hat,” said Phryne at last. 

“Hmm,” said Jack, by way of agreement. He glanced this way and that, then stepped across the threshold and went to the fireplace—not to take up his customary place at the mantel, but to sit on the hearth rug, and open his arms. 

Phryne’s vision swam with tears.

She slid from her chair and into his embrace. He smelled of over-steeped tea, limp wool, and exhaustion. “You went back to the station?”

“It seemed the most useful place for me to be.” Jack laid his cheek on her hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Fitzpatrick’s case. If I’d known you were going to see Steffens today, I would have warned you, and I should have told you, anyway…”

“But I was avoiding you,” Phryne murmured, curling her fingers around a button of his waistcoat. “I didn’t want your sympathy.”

“Or my help.”

“I’m sorry, Jack. You just…” Her chest muscles seized, and for a little while, she couldn’t speak. “You can’t… know, what it’s like. The kind of poverty I grew up in. The scars it leaves behind.”

“I’ve seen what it can drive people to do,” said Jack, very gently. “When they think they’re cornered, and alone.” His arms tightened a fraction. “I could absolutely have handled telling you about this with more tact. But you’re not alone, Phryne. You don’t have to fight this battle without reinforcements.”

“…I wish I knew if that frightened me more or less than the spectre of being poor again.” Phryne sighed and sat up. Jack released her but she didn’t go anywhere. “It was unfair of me to scream at you for doing your job.”

“Eh.” Jack shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s given me an earful over that.”

“Still. And certainly Sergeant Fitzpatrick is under no obligations to care about my sensibilities.”

“Speaking of Sergeant Fitzpatrick, I think the combination of his visit and yours had a very satisfactory effect on Mr. Steffins.”

Phryne stared at Jack hopefully, hardly daring to breathe.

“He’s made a full confession. Apparently, he’s been embezzling the funds of several wealthy clients, including one Miss Phryne Fisher, for his personal speculations. Don’t get too excited,” he cautioned quickly, raising a hand. “His books and accounts will have to be examined, and from what Fitzpatrick told me, it doesn’t appear that much of the money will be recoverable… but I hope at the very least it helps to know that your mistake was in trusting a dishonest man, not in failing to handle your money adequately.”

It was a consolation, of a sort… “An old failing, then,” said Phryne wryly, “rather than a new one.”

He smiled lopsidedly and reached out to touch her face, cupping her cheek in his palm and stroking her skin with his thumb. “I hope it’s enough. It doesn’t solve your impending money problems, I know, but…”

“Ah well,” Phryne sighed. “I suppose the only thing left to do now is fake my death in a massive insurance swindle.”

“…I did mention I used to be in the Fraud division, didn’t I?” He let out a husky laugh. “Phryne, love, I’ve seen your balance sheets. You still bring home more in rents and interest in a month than I take home in a year.”

“If that was intended to be helpful, it didn’t work.” She curled her fingers around his wrist, trying not to cling too obviously. “It could all disappear, just as easily.”

“I know.” He drew her close again. “It’ll be all right. We’ll find a way.” 

“Jack Robinson.” Phryne’s smile was soft and warm, and her green eyes were very bright in the low firelight. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I didn’t make a mistake in trusting _you_.”

She lowered her lips to his and sighed in contentment. Sometimes the touch of his mouth enflamed her beyond all reason, or delighted her so much that she laughed into his kiss. Tonight she reveled in the sensations of comfort and safety that flowed through her as Jack kissed her, slowly and thoroughly. 

“Let me feel you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

Clothing was groped aside and discarded, and soon there was nothing between Phryne and her Jack except air. She took her place in his lap again and held on to him, holding him with hands and thighs and lips, and being held by him in return. 

Eventually, somewhere near dawn, they made their way upstairs and into bed, snuggling down together under the covers. Phryne settled herself into the familiar circle of Jack’s arms and sighed. “I can’t— _we can’t_ —do anything except assume the money’s gone.”

“Thank you for that ‘we’. May I also assume this means you’re willing to let me help you now?”

She looked up and leveled a glare at him. “If you’re about to offer me your life savings, I will murder you. And I know all the tricks of the trade now, so don’t think they’ll ever find your body.”

Jack grinned easily. “I wasn’t going to offer you my life savings. But I was thinking about my house. I don’t really need it now...”

“Selling your house and giving me the proceeds is still murder-worthy.”

“Not doing that, either. No, I was thinking about deeding the house over to you, for use as a rental property. It’s in a good part of town, updated, private, and the rents will help you make up some of the lost income from the stocks Steffins lost.”

“But... what about your garden? Your orchids? It’s your home—” Phryne trailed off, letting Jack interrupt her with gentle kisses. 

“It’s just a house, Phryne,” he murmured softly. “Just a place where I used to go to run away from my problems. Haven’t needed to do that for a very long time now.”

Phryne pushed the curls from his forehead. “No,” she agreed, smiling slightly.


	301. Lullabies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I love this song.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Sing us a song, Mama,” Jack remembered demanding of his mother, as a boy, when she tucked him and his younger sister and brother into bed. “Sing us to sleep, please?”

“I’ve been singing all day, Jacky, while I’ve been doing the washing and the scrubbing,” she would tease him, sitting on the edge of the bed that eleven-year-old Jack shared with his little three-year-old brother Alexander. His little sisters, Ivy and Laura, shared the other bed. “And you’re getting a mite old for lullabies.”

“But Ivy and Laura and Alec aren’t,” returned Jacky slyly. “Are you?”

A chorus of happy “No!”s were his answer. Their mother laughed her big laugh, and shushed little Alec, and began to sing one of the old ballads her mother had brought from Scotland. Jack’s favorite was the one that went _Oh the broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom_. It wasn’t a happy song. It was both sweet and sad, and made Jack’s heart ache for a place and a time that neither he nor his mother had ever known. 

Two years later, there were empty places in both beds. Measles had taken Ivy and Alec, and the new baby Charley, and Laura was sickly and in the infirmary. The night after they buried the babies, Jack’s father went to the pub, a thing he almost never did. 

Jack made tea for his mother and tried to get her to drink. She ignored the cup and put her head down on the table, sobbing. Unsure of what else he could do and close to tears himself, Jack put his arms around his mother and hugged her close, singing in his broken adolescent voice all of the old lullabies he could remember. 

“Oh the broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom, the broom o' the cowdenknowes… Fain would I be in my own country, herding my father's ewes…”

And his heart ached hard, the way it had when he was small, but now it was for things he had known, and loved, and lost.

The song meant loss to him, after that, loss of childhood, loss of companions. He heard the lyrics in his head during his father’s funeral, and when his only son was born too early and buried too soon, and murmured them under his breath when he helped to retrieve the bodies of his friends from No Man’s Land during cease-fires in France. “Hard fate that I should banished be, away o'er hill and moor… Because I loved the fairest lass that ever yet was born…”

When his mother died, and his troubled sister disowned him, and when Rosie left him, he tried to block the song from his thoughts, but the words crept up on him, unbidden and unwelcome, taunting him with all the things he had lost. 

The night he sat beside Phryne Fisher’s hospital bed, waiting and clumsily praying and hoping that she would awaken from the powerful sedative she had been forced by her own childhood demon to drink, he held her hand in his and, his voice rusty and hoarse, was surprised to find himself singing.

“Farewell, ye cowdenknowes, farewell. Farewell all pleasures there… To wander by her side again is all I crave or care…”

“Wander away…”

The words choked in Jack’s throat. He squeezed Phryne’s head, and she squeezed back. With a little difficulty, her eyes opened, only for a moment, but long enough for Jack to see the spark buried deep in the tired green orbs. “Wander with me as long as you like.”

That night, aching with sadness and sweetness in equal measure, Jack remembered why he had always loved the old ballad so much.


	302. Spy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I daren’t stay long. I just had to see you.” (Jack/Bert) Requested by firesign23.

Jack locked the door of his rented room securely, and then shoved a chair under the knob for good measure. “What the hell are you doing here, Albert?”

“Uh...” Bert rubbed the back of his neck and looked sheepish. “Gettin’ myself in a lorryload’a trouble?”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” said Jack grimly. He gave the cabbie a critical once-over and braced himself for a complicated explanation. “So? Did Miss Fisher send you to spy on me?”

“What, you think she can’t do her own spyin’?” Jack glared at him harder and Bert's grin faded. “Nah, it’s just... you’ve been at this for a couple’a weeks now, an’...”

“Yes?”

Bert swallowed and stepped into Jack’s space. “Missed you, Robinson,” he murmured, his voice husky and his eyes dropping to Jack’s lips. “Missed you like hell.”

Jack cupped Bert’s face in his callused palm. “We’ll catch hell, if they find you here,” he replied, rubbing his thumb lightly over Bert’s lower lip. 

“D’you care?”

“At the moment? Not especially.”

Bert pulled Jack’s head down and kissed him hard, almost whimpering at the familiar pressure of Jack’s thin, skillful lips.


	303. Sealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Don't worry, it only seems kinky the first time.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Are you sure we have enough time?” Phryne teased, pressing herself back amongst the coats and jackets. Jack closed the closet door firmly and then twisted round to press his lean, solid frame against her.

“Fifteen minutes. Should be plenty of time.”

“But are you sure you’re up for it?” A warm feminine hand made its way between them. “Oh, I should say so...”

“Wait, Phryne, wait a moment…”

“A little jittery, Jack? Don’t worry, darling, you’ll get used to it.”

“I’m cramped, not nervous. This isn’t my first time shagging in a closet.”

“Is that so...”

“My lips are sealed, Miss Fisher. What happens within a marriage, stays within a marriage.”

“In that case, I’ll get Rosie to tell me. You’d be surprised at what I’ve gotten out of her so far...”


	304. Snob

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t you understand? I would never choose him over you!” (Dot/Hugh) Requested by blackkitty9.

Hugh kicked a tuft of seaweed out of his path, as he and his fiancée walked along the foreshore. “The fellow that the inspector had in to do my job while I was gone,” he said, “he sounds like he was a real snob.”

“He was,” Dot agreed. “At first. After a day or two, though, he learned how to behave around lady detectives and their assistants.”

Hugh’s grin was broad at his colleague’s expense, and maybe just a little at his own. “I did worry – a little bit – that if I stayed away too long, you-you might find someone else.”

Dot thought back to what she had told Neville Martin, that she would be faithful to Hugh whether he came back or not. “Well,” she hedged, “a girl _does_ have to think about the future. But he wasn’t as good a kisser as you.”

“I-he-what?” Hugh stumbled over the remains of a sand castle. “You kissed him?”

“He kissed me,” Dot corrected, determined to be accurate. “We needed a distraction.”

Hugh swallowed once or twice before running a hand through his sea breeze-tousled hair. “You’re still learning a lot from Miss Fisher, I see,” he said, weakly.

Dot smiled, though there was an odd lump in her throat. “I am. And do you know what I learned while you were gone?” She stretched up on her toes and kissed her Hugh firmly. 

“Oh,” said Hugh, grinning and blushing, when she finally let him go.


	305. Coalesce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A boy needs his father.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“Stay here tonight, Jack,” Phryne said, after they had secured the house against further intruders. It was a request and not. Jack hesitated, even in his mind, to call it a plea, but...

“If you like,” he agreed, searching her face. There was only a trace of the powerful Cleopatra in it now. Phryne Fisher was tired, and terrified. “I can make myself comfortable next to the fireplace.”

She touched his arm, first with her fingertips, then hesitantly sliding her palm up the sleeve of his jacket until her hand was curled around his bicep. “Stay with me?”

Every conflicted irritating emotion coalesced into one crystal-clear feeling: a desire to hold Phryne as she slept, and make sure she slept well. “All right,” he conceded. Jack reached for her hand and closed his fingers around it gently.

She had pyjamas for him, or rather, Mr. Butler had long since procured pyjamas for him, anticipating a night when the inspector might need to use the guest room. Jack ducked into the bathroom on the landing to change and wash the remaining pomade out of his hair. Phryne was waiting for him in bed when he returned. She was wearing nightclothes, he noted, unsure if he was relieved or not, and the opposite side of the bed was turned down. 

He slid gingerly under the covers and was mentally unsurprised (but physically unprepared) when she cuddled up quite close to him.

“I’m sorry you had to get dragged into all of this,” she murmured, after a few moments during which their heart-rates had simultaneously sped up and then slowed. “It’s... well, it’s largely family business, apart from...”

“Yes. Well, we’ve all got family business.” Jack put an arm around Phryne’s satin-covered shoulders. “I’ve got a sister I don’t speak to.”

“Why not?”

“We argued. I questioned the health of her marriage and her lifestyle and how she was raising her son. That was almost five years ago. She hasn’t spoken to me since.” Then, before Phryne could question him further, “Your cousin Guy doesn’t seem to have much use for his brother.”

“No... Guy and Aunt Prudence... she adores him, and spoils him rotten, but she always gave the lion’s share of her attention to Arthur. My uncle Edward was who Guy confided in. They were thick as thieves, when we were very small children. Later on, Uncle Edward became more wrapped up in business, and Guy was sent to school in England. He spent a lot of time at my parents’ house, during school holidays.” Phryne sighed and pressed closer. “But my aunt and uncle kept Arthur at home. Guy always resented them for that.”

“Hmm. When did your uncle pass away?”

“Oh, some five or six years ago. There wasn’t time for any of us to travel for the funeral, of course. At the time, Guy said he wouldn’t have gone even if he’d been able, but… I do wonder.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed softly. With his fingertip, he stroked a few strands of hair away from Phryne’s cheek. “Let’s get some sleep.”


	306. Veiled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m here to visit my father.” (Rosie & Concetta) Requested by babsmd.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Jack said, looking a little sheepish, when he arrived at her sister’s house to take Rosie to visit her father. “I had to give another friend a ride to the prison.”

Rosie recognized the woman in the back seat, though she was veiled carefully. “It’s Mrs. Fabrizzi, isn’t it?” she asked, offering her hand through the half-open window. 

“Si,” said Concetta, briefly squeezing the slim hand she was offered, and averting her eyes. 

Rosie looked at her for a moment. “I believe I’ll sit in the back seat,” she said to Jack, who was holding the front passenger door open for her. 

He tilted his head slightly, and then nodded, and slowly closed the door. 

She settled into place beside Concetta, trying to compose her thoughts. She knew Jack had been fond of the Italian widow, even attracted to her, but that seemed to have faded. But his friendship was still there… “I’m going to see my father,” Rosie said at last. 

Concetta slowly turned and looked at her. “I am visiting my grandfather,” she replied. 

In the front seat, Jack swallowed the lump forming in his throat and kept his eyes focused on the road.


	307. Specialty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Well, that wasn’t what I expected.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by mollidraws.

Phryne stared down at the remains on the table. “When you said you had an urgent and unusual murder case for me to consult on, Jack, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

“I would’ve thought you’d know better by now, Miss Fisher.” Jack dusted off his hands. “Expect the unexpected.”

“That’s as may be, but I’m not sure plant-based murder is really my specialty. Perhaps Dr. Mac?”

“I’m not trying to determine who died by this method.”

“Then...?” Phryne looked from Jack’s irritated face to the shreds of orchid laid out upon newspaper on her kitchen table. “Oh. You want me to help find who did this?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t a dog?”

“Not unless the dog had opposable thumbs and the ability to pick the lock into my greenhouse.”

Phryne pressed her lips together hard, to avoid smiling. Jack was rather adorable, when he got worked up over his flowers. “Well then, Inspector, we’d best start at the beginning.”


	308. Incentive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This was supposed to be relaxing.” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.

The rough wooden wall of their hiding place seemed to dig into Phryne’s back. “What is this bloody thing?” Bert muttered, his lips right beside Phryne’s ear.

“Some sort of packing crate, I think,” she whispered back. The rest of Bert was crushed up against her so that the door (or lid) of the thing would close all the way. “Rather a tight fit.”

“You reckon?”

“Sorry, Bert. This was supposed to be just a nice quiet little shopping excursion.”

“Catch me goin’ shopping with you again. Figures we’d end up in the middle of a robbery.” To Phryne’s pleasure, his gruff voice sounded more amused than annoyed. Certainly other parts of him seemed to firmly approve of the situation.

“Can you reach my gun?”

“I think so. Can definitely reach somethin’ else...” His fingers brushed over her silk-covered mound.

“Bert. Business before pleasure.”

“Right-o, Miss.” Phryne felt the gun press against her palm. “Count of three? One... two...”

In the second before they burst from the packing crate to foil the robbery of the antique store, Phryne kissed him quickly. “For later,” she promised.

Bert always fought better with an extra bit of incentive.


	309. Indistinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Hello, gorgeous, do I know you?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by hello-beaniebeanie.

There were voices in the distance, low and indistinct. 

_His injuries are …ling well… woken up yet?_

_A long time… infection… only expect so much…_

The voices faded, and the world with them.

He dreamed. 

He dreamed of a decaying house where a suspect had gone to ground. ‘You take the first floor, I’ll take the second,’ he heard his voice. The words seemed to echo and ring and reverberate with dread. 

Darkness. Foul odors. A shout. A bang and a bright light. Pain. The scent of blood. 

A worried hand slicking through the wet hair at his temple. A voice… ‘Jack!’

Jack opened his eyes, and saw white. 

He blinked once or twice, waiting for his vision to focus. A white ceiling. He turned his head slightly to one side and saw a window, through which warm light streamed. He turned his head the other way (carefully; the window swayed a bit when he moved and the featureless ceiling was disorientating) and saw a woman asleep in a chair. 

Jack studied her for a long time. He moistened his lips and swallowed a few times. “Hello, gorgeous,” he whispered. Phryne let out an irritated little noise and then jerked awake. Her face was flushed and eyes wide. Jack thought he’d never seen anything so lovely. “Fancy meeting you here.”


	310. Dapper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Hello, gorgeous, do I know you?” (Writer's Choice) Requested by heavyheadedgal.
> 
> Today's Writer's Choice = Rosie/Mac

The question came from Rosie’s right, as she leaned on the bar of the small elegant jewel-box of a members-only club to ask the bartender for a drink. She raised an eyebrow and turned to look at the inquirer, a dapper woman with a barely-tamed mass of red curls, barely any makeup, and one of the most striking faces Rosie had seen in a long time. 

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Rosie started to say, but her inviting smile was arrested halfway by a sudden memory of a white coat and then a court room. “It’s Doctor Macmillan, isn’t it?”

“Mac, please. All my good friends call me Mac.”

Rosie raised an eyebrow. It was a promising start, to say the least.


	311. Snapshot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random bonus drabble! There’s no actual dialogue prompt for this one, unless it’s “Oooh, you should totally do that!” (Bert) Requested by firesign23.

“Miss?” Bert stood in the parlour doorway, twisting his hat brim slightly between his hands. “I was... I was wonderin’ if you’d be willin’ to help me with something.”

Phryne laid the case file down. “Of course, Bert, if I’m able. Will you sit?”

He perched gingerly on the edge of a chair and explained about Susan and the kids and the letter he’d received from his wife while he was in Egypt, telling Bert not to look for them. “For a long time, I just didn’t want t' think about it. But lately... it’s time, I guess. Time t’ move on.”

“I understand,” said Phryne softly, remembering the events that had led to her recent birthday party. “I’ll get in touch with my solicitor. We’ll get this settled.”

And they did. The newspaper notices brought in one or two false starts from other women with estranged husbands named Albert Johnson, but finally Phryne’s solicitor received a letter from a colleague acting on behalf of a Mrs. Susan Taylor, in Adelaide. “Is this her?” the solicitor asked, passing Bert the letter.

He started at the face in the photo, and then at the sight of the larger snapshot, felt a lump come into his throat. “That’s ‘er, that’s me wife,” he muttered, pushing the letter and the small portrait back across the desk. But he kept the bigger one, of his three children.

Susan didn’t contest the divorce. Bert half-worried she’d show up at the magistrate’s building on the day, but there was no sign of her.

When he and Cec and Miss Fisher left the courthouse, though, there was a husky blond lad of about eighteen, leaning against the lamppost and smoking nervously. When Bert laid eyes on him, the cabbie reeled as though shot.

“Mate?” Cec put a hand on Bert's shoulder. “You okay?”

Bert swallowed, and as the youth approached he tried to speak, but nothing came out. The young man stopped in front of him and pushed his cap back, revealing a handsome blunt face and searing blue eyes. “Hallo, Dad,” he said quietly.


	312. Playthings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Phryne drabble! This grew out of a writing exercise where I needed to use onomatopoeia, alliteration, and other such devices (but not rhyme) to create a piece that was intended to be read aloud. For some reason, I got my brain wrapped around the cadence of Poe's “Annabel Lee”, and produced this. (Also, there is totally rhyme.)

There's nothing to be done, she thinks, but to fly, with the swift beat of wings and the roar of an engine that runs on petrol and wishes and soars her high up into the sky, away from the clutter of life in towns little more than toys, that look like scattered playthings from her perch in the sky.

Yes, to fly, on wings of metal and fabric feathers fanned out wide to take her away from finished business and kisses that mean too much and too little and nothing at all, and into the embrace of the clouds and the wind, who pay her no mind, as the toy towns below pay her no mind, as the people she leaves behind prey on her mind, as she glides up and away into the sky.


	313. Exploratory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t miss you until I came back.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by me!

Phryne ached. All over. Jack had been as eager and untaught as she had expected, as passionate and urgent as she had hoped. Her room at the Windsor (she had returned in a whirlwind and taken everyone by surprise, as always) reeked of sweat and sex and stale champagne. The fine Irish linen sheets were soaked. She needed a bath and a drink. But at that moment, nothing could have induced her to part with Jack’s touch.

His hands were sleepy against her lower back, and Phryne’s hand was quiet on his sternum. The feel and the smell and the sound of him blotted out all thoughts of what would come after, and made her linger on what had come before. 

She had enjoyed her mad flight across Asia and Europe, even carrying the burden of her father and his faults. And she had thoroughly enjoyed her time in London, despite the demands of society and the disquieting family revelations she had endured. She had thought of Jack often, but she hadn’t missed him. There had been no time.

Until he had arrived at the Windsor that night, freshly combed and shaved, and Phryne had taken his hand and put it on her face, sliding his fingers into her hair the way he had the first and last times he had kissed her. 

The feeling of his skin, slightly roughened, moving against hers, was the most exquisite thing. It was all things, familiar, new, exciting, comforting. It was exactly what she never knew she needed. 

Their subsequent lovemaking had been clumsy and guttural and there had been fumbling and false starts and a surprising amount of laughter. Phryne couldn’t have asked for more. But Jack’s touch – tender, exploratory without being possessive, courteous – the very nature of his presence pressed against hers in as they caught their breaths and slid towards sleep – warmed her straight through to her bones.


	314. Drown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My heart starts racing every time I look into your eyes.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by sheldonslog.

Sam groaned softly and fisted his cock as Jack pushed into him. “Not yet, good-looking,” Jack murmured. He took both of Sam’s hands and pinned them above Sam’s head, and kissed him quiet for a minute or two. “Now that I have your full attention... tell me something, Sammy.”

“God, _anything_...”

“Does it bother you, that Lili might be pregnant by me?”

“...What? Christ, Jack, no, it doesn’t bother me.”

“You’re sure? We’ve been with her together a lot, lately. There’s no way to be sure…”

Jack’s blue eyes were wide with worry. Sam took a deep breath to steady his heart (he would work through all the reasons why it was pounding later) and twitched his hands free, so that he could frame Jack’s face in his palms and kiss him softly. It was hard not to drown, in those eyes. “I’m sure. It could just as easily be my kid. But it doesn’t matter who the father is. We both love Lili, and I love you. If it’s your kid, I’ll love it like it was mine, _because_ it’s yours. And she’ll do the same. Now,” he said, grinning and biting Jack’s lower lip, “quit talking. This bed’s not gonna break itself.”


	315. Tumblers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Give me more loving from the very start / Piece me back together when I fall apart / Tell me things you never even tell your closest friends” (“1234” by the Plain White T’s) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

The combination of Jack’s heart was something Phryne didn’t think she would ever crack. She’d never been good at combination locks or men’s hearts, and really, why was she so determined to work her picklocks into Detective Inspector Robinson in the first place? If it was the sheer challenge he presented, well, there were thousands of men who would be a challenge to pursue, so that couldn’t be it at all. And the intricacy of a combination, in her experience, was often if not always in inverse proportion to the richness of the contents—people with real treasures to hide didn’t keep them in safes, as Phryne had reason to know. 

No, it wasn’t the challenge of figuring out the combination that lured and allured her, but… tumblers. The tumblers of a complicated lock protecting a complicated man, that she so often caught glimpses of over tumblers of whiskey, which seemed sometimes to be aching to yield in one hushed and giddy moment to a gentle touch, as she had yielded to the urge to cry in his arms when no one was there to see.


	316. Limbo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My life has been a series of major disappointments.” (Rosie/Mac) Requested by babsmd.

“It’s hard,” Rosie mused softly, as she lay cuddled against Mac’s lean, bare side, “sometimes, to remember there are still good things in the world.”

Mac blew a contemplative smoke ring into the dim air of the bedroom. “I hope I’m in included in that category,” she said, in her dryly fond way.

“Oh, just a bit,” Rosie replied, equally as dry. But the kiss she brushed across Mac’s breast was anything but distant. “After everything that’s happened, this is… well, _this_. It’s hard to believe.”

“I spend most of my life in that particular state of limbo.” Mac raised a hand and stroked Rosie’s tumbled brown curls, still damp from their love-making. “There are definitely days when the disappointments tend to overshadow the triumphs.”

Rosie nudged her head against Mac’s hand like a contented cat. “I hope I’m not included in the disappointments.”

“Heaven forbid,” said Mac with a soft smile.


	317. Substantial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You have to do a ...strip ...search on me?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Let the howling for a continuation... begin!

“Jack,” asked Phryne, as she sat in her favorite spot on the corner of his desk, “why do you always get so flustered whenever I perch myself here?”

Jack, who was concentrating on keeping his attention on official case paperwork and _not_ getting distracted by the sight of Phryne’s shapely silk-clad leg, cleared his throat. “I should think it would be obvious to a trained investigator such as yourself,” he said, still a trifle gruff in tone. “That particular pose brings up… memories.”

Phryne raised an amused eyebrow. “Pleasant memories, I hope,” she purred.

“Oh, many.” Jack’s voice dropped an octave, and Phryne’s other eyebrow went up.

“Of more than just me,” she realized, a delighted and positively evil grin spreading across her face. “Jack!”

He rolled his shoulders and grinned, though his cheeks were flushed dark. “I told you once before: it’s a mistake to think you’ve got me figured out.”

“So you’ve had your way with quite a few people on this desk.”

“I wouldn’t say _quite_ a few. Say, a substantial handful.”

“Mmm, and I know you like a substantial handful…” Phryne smiled and considered Jack’s grin thoughtfully, idly tonguing her canine, which riveted Jack’s attention as she’d known it would. “You know what, Jack? I don’t think I believe you.”

“That’s your prerogative,” he replied, raising his eyes an inch or two to meet her challenging gaze with one of his own. 

“Would you care to prove it?”

“How?”

“You tell me about all of your… escapades… on this very desk. For each tale you relate, I’ll remove an item of clothing.”

He skimmed her body with admirable coolness, down and back, from the tip of her elegant shoe, to her crossed legs, up the front of her light dress to the scarf covering her collarbones, to her neck and her tempting red lips and finally returning to her eyes. “I think you’re wildly overestimating how many escapades I have to relate,” he said at last, an impish look dancing just out of reach. “I might get you down to your knickers.”

“And I think,” Phryne replied, leaning forward just enough to give Jack a glimpse down her décolletage, “that you’re wildly overestimating how many clothes I’m wearing.” She set her fingers to the scarf at her throat. “Tell me a story, Jack.”


	318. Effervescent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A little goes a long way.” “Good, because we have a long way to go.” (Bert/Cec) Requested by afterdinnerminx.
> 
> I am so surprised there isn't more Bert/Cec fic around.

He’d kissed Cec first, he remembered that. He remembered them coming back to their rented room at a seedy Parisian inn, stumbling over each other’s feet, giggling and drunk with cheap wine and singing and the effervescent high of being alive after four years of hell. And Bert had looked up at his mate’s smooth face, relaxed and smiling, and couldn’t contain himself. He'd pulled Cec down for a kiss and gave it everything he had.

To his surprise, Cec didn’t push him away. His hands went to Bert’s waist and he held Bert in place for a minute before they broke apart. “What’s the matter?” Cec asked, his quiet humor shining through while his eyes darted across Bert’s face. “Just couldn’t get enough vin de table?”

“Nah.” Bert swallowed and licked his lips. “A little a’ that stuff goes a long way.” He tried to back away, to give Cec his space, but the hands on his hips tightened and brought him right back.


	319. Verge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Yell, scream, say something!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

“What do you want me to say?” replied Jack quietly. “What else can I say that I haven’t said a hundred times before?” He crouched down next to Phryne as she sat wrapped in a blanket, singed and shivering on the side of the road while the remains of her beautiful Hispano-Suiza smoldered on the verge. “You drive too fast. You could have died today. You nearly did. Again. You have no thought for the people who care about you and who will be devastated by your death. It’s all old news, Phryne. I’ve got nothing more to add.”

He gripped her shoulder firmly and Phryne leaned into the familiar touch. She knew better than to turn and meet his eyes, at a time like this.

“Come on,” he said at last. “I’ll take you home.”


	320. Elephants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If you leave now, you lose everything.” (Prudence and Phryne) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> I actually had two of this prompt; I’ll do the second one tomorrow.

Of all the people Phryne expected to see at midnight on the day of Dot’s wedding, her Aunt Prudence was not one of them. “Is your father about?” Prudence asked, glancing suspiciously around the hall, as though the baron might be lurking in a dark corner about to ask her for money. 

“Father drank enough to anesthetize a herd of elephants. Bert and Cec put him to bed hours ago.”

“Even so...”

“Bert is also sitting outside Father’s bedroom door as we speak, and Cec is standing guard under the window. He’s not slipping away again, Aunt P. I will have him on that plane if I have to truss him like a Christmas goose to get him there.”

Phryne shut the door with a grin and turned to her aunt, who was looking at her with a kind of gentle sadness that Phryne hadn’t seen since Arthur died. “That is what I wanted to talk to you about, Phryne. This... madcap flight. It’s too much of a risk, even for you.”

“‘Too much of a risk’? Aunt Prudence, you’re talking about your sister’s marriage!”

“I don’t know why you think this is necessary,” Prudence said, still gazing at her niece with open concern. “We both know Margaret – all of us – would be better off if your father simply... left. You’re not going to fix all of their problems with your usual flare and dramatics, but I’m not trying to dissuade you from going because of that.”

The passionate and peevish (it had been a long day and Phryne was exhausted in every single possible meaning of the word) response Phryne had been about to blurt out evaporated. “Then why...?”

“You have more to lose,” said Prudence, very gently, “by going, than you do by staying. Once you fly away, how long do you think it will take the Inspector to... well, move on?”

Phryne felt suddenly calm. “Oh, Aunt,” she smiled, bending to give Prudence a kiss on the cheek, “of all the million reasons I give you to worry about me, that definitely doesn't have to be one of them.”


	321. Bulwark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If you leave now, you lose everything.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“I’m thinking of quitting the force.”

He dropped the bombshell into the quiet of her bedroom and shattered her post coital peace. Phryne lifted her head from his damp chest and stared at Jack in complete disbelief. “Why?”

His hand was still tangled in the wild black strands of her hair. He gentled his grip but did not let go. “Because I can’t go on like this, Phryne. Every alternative means giving up something that means more to me than my job, and I’m not willing to do that.”

“You mean me.” An abrupt punch of emotion crackled through Phryne’s veins — not guilt (she was of a mindset that did not allow guilt to enter into her thoughts, and she had convinced herself that it worked), but irritation. “No. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

“Your conscience only troubles you when it’s convenient,” he replied calmly, though his blue eyes danced in amusement at her expense and spoke volumes of how deeply he knew guilt could gnaw at her. “And I’m not doing this because of you or _for_ you, Phryne.”

“You mean the world really _doesn’t_ revolve around me? Damn.”

He grinned a little at that. “My self-respect means more to me than my position on the police force, and circumstances being what they are... I can’t continue. It’s too much of a conflict of interest.”

“I... Jack, I’m still not sure what you mean.” Phryne sat back, taking the sheet with her and wrapping it around her nakedness. That left Jack completely uncovered, which was an inarguable pleasure, but the shield was what she wanted. “If that conflict isn’t your relationship with me, than I’ll thank you to tell me what it is.”

He sat up as well, folding his legs beneath his body. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I suppose it is... but not in the way that you think. While you were abroad, I had time to consider. To... analyze. I came to several unpleasant conclusions, the chief of which is simply that with the exception of Hugh Collins, there is no longer anyone on the Victoria Police Force that I trust. And when an officer of the law cannot trust his fellow police officers, it’s time for him to go.” Jack watched the emotions play over his lover’s face. “I suppose that means I’m of no further use to you,” he added, carefully teasing. 

Phryne shook herself. “At one time, Jack Robinson, you were nothing but an attractive informer to me,” she retorted, in her silkiest tones, “but you’ve long since made me reliant on your... other good qualities.”

“I’m very glad to hear it, Miss Fisher.”

She unfolded herself from her protective cocoon and draped herself instead around the bulwark of Jack’s body. “If you leave, what will you do instead?”

“Well, that is the question. I’m a little old to get back into professional cycling, although I could probably make a very decent living for myself as a genteel gardener.”

“And I’m sure any number of Aunt Prudence’s friends have stray children or grandchildren in need of piano lessons.”

The look Jack cast down at her made her burst out laughing. “I would rather work on the docks for the rest of my life,” he said, when she paused to catch her breath. “I’ve thought it round and round, and I keep coming back to the same conclusion: I am a detective, Phryne. I abhor politics, and the effort fending off accusations of corruption on the force when I know damned well it’s taking place, and I’m tired of being required by my job to take notice of things that would be better left unremarked, and being forced to ignore crimes that should bloody well be investigated.”

Phryne blinked up at him. “So... what, then? ‘Jack Robinson, Private Detective’?”

“It’s a consideration.”

“You’ll lose all the respect of the official police force, and make both of our jobs endlessly more difficult. And really, I’m not sure how I feel about you muscling in on my territory,” she said, poking his ribs delightedly.

“It’s not as though I’d be doing business out of your parlour, Phryne. I’d get my own office. And contrary to wide belief, you are not the only private investigator in Melbourne. But,” Jack added, stretching out beside her, “you are the only one that _I_ trust.”


	322. Wainscoting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Dig if you will the picture  
> Of you and I engaged in a kiss  
> The sweat of your body covers me  
> Can you my darling  
> Can you picture this?” (‘When Doves Cry’ by Prince) (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

No one would miss them, Jack realized dimly, in the very back of his mind where he could still think clearly, a place that was rapidly becoming overshadowed by more fundamental and instinctual thoughts. _Hands lips Sam Sam clothes too many clothes clothes too hot too tight Sam where’s a bed where’s a room where’s alone_ He could see it all so clearly he could almost smell it, Sam inside him and over him, skins slipping across one another... “God,” he whispered helplessly.

The fine wallpaper and wainscoting of the corridor wall he was pressed up against almost felt alive; he could feel every fiber and grain of the patterns and every pass of Sam’s tongue over the pulse pounding in his throat. No one would miss them if they simply vanished from the fundraiser. It was a ladies’ affair; husbands and gentleman escorts were practically expected to disappear at some point or other. Their wives understood, their lady-friends understood. Men weren’t cut out for this sort of business, better they go and amuse themselves in the billiard room or the smoking room, yes, so much better...

“I want you, Jack,” Sam growled softly, slipping his hands beneath Jack's black dinner jacket and around to dip down the back of his trousers. His callused fingertips pawed through fabric and found skin. Jack bit back a whimper. “Christ, man, I want you so badly... you know this house.”

Did he? He did, of course he did, it was the Stanley house, he’d investigated three murders here and fucked the owner’s niece in nearly every room— “This way,” Jack managed. He pulled Sam’s hand out of his pants and pulled him upstairs. 

It was slow going, finding a bedroom, because every other second Sam was pressing him up against a wall or a decorative pillar and grinding his cock against Jack’s thigh. “Faster, Jackie," he laughed, biting Jack’s earlobe, “or I swear to God, I’ll fuck you in this hallway.”

“Stop distracting me,” Jack snapped back. _Don’t stop please yes right here fuck me here I don’t care shit what if someone sees **I don’t care**_ He turned a corner and opened a door and dragged Sam into the suite he and Phryne always ended up sharing, and shut the door hard. Sam pulled him into a rough embrace and kissed him like a drowning man drinks, and pushed the jacket from his shoulders.

The thought of Phryne made him shudder in Sam’s arms. Phryne was downstairs in the ballroom with Sam’s wife Lili. It seemed so far away, and he’d never been alone with Sam in bed, and Sam was so hungry... 

“Scared of me, Jack?” Sam murmured, working Jack out of his white waistcoat and braces and shirt. 

“No.”

“You’re shaking.”

Jack threw back his head and tried to laugh, but his mouth was too dry with wanting. “You’re a sexy teasing son of a bitch.”

Sam grinned and pushed his hand down the front of Jack’s trousers, and then pushed him onto the bed.


	323. Legible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My strong right hand...” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by meldanya44.

It had been only right, for Phryne to insist that Jack stay with her while his broken arm was mending. After all, it _was_ her fault that his arm was broken in the first place. “If I had just stayed where I was, this would never have happened,” she pointed out, remorsefully, as Jack settled into the armchair placed in her guest bedroom for his especial comfort. 

“Oh no, definitely not. Instead of a broken arm, I’d probably have a bullet hole in my temple.” Jack’s face was drawn slightly with pain and painkillers, but his smile was sincere, and as wry as ever. “You barged in at the worst possible moment, again, and yet still managed to save my neck and apprehend our suspect in the bargain.”

“I am a woman of many talents,” Phryne replied dryly. 

“A pity it had to be my writing arm, though. Hugh can drop off all the paperwork he likes, but my signature isn’t going to be legible for six weeks, at least.”

Phryne snorted. “Jack. As if it was ever legible in the first place.”


	324. Bespoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Give me one good reason why I should wear a dress.” (Rosie/Mac) Requested by firesign23.

“No,” said Mac firmly. “No, absolutely not.”

“Oh, Mac, you have to!” Rosie tried in vain to show off the swatch of fabric she’d brought home from the dressmaker’s, but to no avail. Mac wouldn’t even look at it.

“I am not wearing a dress to your niece’s wedding. She’s a fantastic kid and I wish her all the best, but either I’m wearing my formal suit or I am staying right here.” And Mac thumped the kitchen table lightly to emphasize her point. 

Rosie considered her lover for a moment or two. “You do realize that we’re both in the bridal party, darling,” she said, sitting down beside Mac and laying the royal blue satin on the table between them. “And Christina was so nervous about asking both of us...”

Mac rubbed her temples and tried to concentrate on the paper she was supposed to be editing for publication. “And I appreciate that she did. Your sister and her kids have been nothing but supportive of us, but I still don’t see why I have to wear an expensive bloody satin _dress_ for a single day, just because your niece is getting married! Phryne’s my best friend and I didn’t have to wear a dress to her wedding!”

“That’s because Phryne and Jack eloped to Siam,” Rosie retorted, “and I’m still annoyed with them, but that’s beside the point.”

“Which is...?”

“Let me put it this way, my love: would you rather wear a royal blue satin dress for a day, or a bespoke royal blue satin _suit_ , with tailored trousers and an embroidered waistcoat, which will make you stand out like a bruise?”

“Like a gorgeous bruise from a night of magnificent sex,” said Mac promptly. “The suit, of course.”

Rosie smiled. “Good. Your fitting is scheduled for two o’clock this afternoon.”

There was a pause, and then Mac let out a low chuckle. “You know me far too well,” she said, pulling Rosie into her lap for a long, slow kiss.


	325. Dead Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “watching the stars slide down to reach the end 'cause sleep is not my friend” (‘Shampain’ by Marina and The Diamonds) (Phryne/Jack and Phryne/Mac) Requested by blackkitty9.

“Mr. Butler, another!” Phryne cried, waving the empty champagne bottle over her head like a trophy.

“Actually,” Mac interposed, “I think you’ve had more than enough. Mr. Butler’s gone to sleep, Phryne, and I am taking you up to bed.” She glanced around at the collection of empty bottles and glasses. “Before you fall asleep among the dead men.”

“Mac! I don’t sleep with dead men. I do have _some_ standards.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Mac muttered. She reached for her friend’s arm.

Phryne batted Mac’s hand away and positively draped herself over her. “And I don’t _want_ to sleep yet. But I do like the idea of you taking me to bed...”

Mac rolled her eyes and permitted herself one brief, not entirely chaste kiss. “I, on the other hand, do have standards. Not tonight, Phryne.”

Phryne pouted. "But Maaac..."

“ _No._ Some other night, yes, gladly. But not while you’re this many sheets to the wind and not when you were waiting for someone else and I’m second-best of the night. Now. Up the stairs you get.”

“...Carry me?”

“Not on your life. Move.”

Phryne leaned heavily on Mac’s shoulder and used her as a prop, and they made their slow way upstairs to the master bedroom. “Bed,” Mac said sternly, when Phryne raised bleary, hopeful green eyes to her. “Do as your friendly neighborhood doctor says.”

Smudged red lips twisted into a frown. “You too.”

“Phryne, I already said—”

“It’s late and I’m lonely.” Phryne put her arms around Mac’s waist and hauled her into bed. “Stay with me and watch the stars...”

“Phryne, I have early surgery tomorrow, I—” But the massive quantities of champagne had had their effect. Phryne Fisher was asleep, snuggled up close against Mac’s side, and her pale elegant arms were not nearly as delicate as they looked. 

Mac resigned herself to her fate. She reached over to the lamp on the bedside table, turned it off with some difficulty, and tried to sleep. 

She woke from a brittle slumber some time later, to the sound of a soft tread coming up the stairs, a door opening and closing, and, after a pause, a familiar hand touching her shoulder. “You alright, Doctor? You’re in my spot.”

“Jack,” she whispered groggily. “God damn you and your late-night raids. Help me shift her. I can’t feel my shoulder anymore.”

She couldn’t see his face in the darkened bedroom, but Mac had the irritating feeling that Jack Robinson was laughing at her.


	326. Scrawl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A letter from the front…” (Rosie) Requested by ladygrayluvs and floydsroom.
> 
> Inspired by [this post](http://floydsroom.tumblr.com/post/139326460702/gaslightgallows-ladygrayluvs-pintoras).

Rosie Robinson rifled anxiously through her family’s mail. Jack had been writing her here at her parents’ house, rather than at their own little bungalow, since he had left with the army two years before, but it had been weeks since she had received a letter from her husband and she was beginning to panic. One letter or even two might get lost between France and Australia, but three months’ worth? There hadn’t been so much as a telegram from a commanding officer, such as the one her mother had received in 1915, telling them of the death of Rosie’s brother William in Gallipoli. 

Tradesmen’s bills for the housekeeper, official documents for Father, a letter from her older sister Victoria in England—and then there it was, “Mrs. Rosemary Robinson” written across the front of the envelope with a familiar crab-like scrawl. 

She nearly burst into tears then and there in the front hallway. Instead, she clutched the much-traveled letter to her chest and hurried into her mother’s formal parlour. It was chilly and damp and the furniture smelled horribly musty, but no one ever went in there anymore and that was exactly what Rosie needed. She curled herself into an overstuffed chair patterned with enormous faded pink tea roses, and opened the envelope.

_Sweetheart,_

_Just a few lines to tell you that I am still in the land of the living. I have been laid up in hospital for I am told over two months, not unconscious but ill and unable to hold a pen for very long. I am mending well now. Have a wound on my hip that is troubling me, but thanks to Gib I will not be lame for very much longer._

_This is not a bad place. The food is better than at the front and there is a piano in the rec room for us. I have been trying to play more. How I wish I could be home with you, my Rosie, and playing duets with you. Tell my mother and sister that I am well, and that I will write them soon._

_Please excuse bad writing. My fingers have been holding a rifle for so long, I have forgotten how to hold a pen._

_Think of me often, Rosie, as I think of you. Keep me in your thoughts and God willing, I will not be long in coming home to you._

_Eternal love from  
yours forever more,_

_Jack_


	327. Walking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.” (D.H. Lawrence) (Phryne/Jack) For missingmissfisher.

“Jack? If I one day decided to end our... arrangement, would you be all right?”

If the question took him aback, he didn’t show it. If anything, the tension of his muscles told Phryne that, far from being surprised, he had on some level been expecting it. “That depends on what you mean by ‘all right’.”

“I mean, if things simply weren’t working. No drama, no scenes, just you and I having a conversation. Would you be very devastated and try to withdraw into a solitary whiskey bottle?”

Jack acknowledged the truth of that statement by gravely folding his hands behind his head. “ _Very_ devastated? I don’t think so, no. Upset, certainly. Hurt, very possibly, depending on the circumstances. But I think as long as we parted on good terms... I’d live.”

“You’re sure?”

“Should I be concerned by this conversation?”

“I’m not handing you your walking papers, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“Then what?”

Phryne drew her sheet-covered legs to her chest. “I suppose I’m trying to ask if you need me. If my going would destroy you entirely.”

“I’m guessing you won’t be insulted if I say ‘No’.”

“It’s a lovely thing to be wanted, Jack. To have a place in someone’s life simply because that person wants me there, and to offer them a place in return. But being _needed_ , being an immovable requirement to a man’s everyday existence... no, I can’t do that. I love you, darling, and you’re certainly an important part of my life, but I could exist without you, if I had to. I wouldn’t like it much, of course,” she added, with a lopsided smile.

“That’s a relief.”

“I’m serious, Jack.”

“So am I.” He gazed up at her with his little half-smile, the one that could be wry and sad and tender all at the same time. “All I’ve ever asked you for is your consideration, and you’re giving me that in spades. Everything else has been... a gift. I love you, Phryne, and I love my life with you in it. But I’ve been left before. If that’s what you need – or want, at some point – I’ll live.”

Phryne looked down at him for a moment or two and then stroked his chest lightly. “Thank you, Jack.”

“Your freedom is more important to you than I could ever be. I’ve always known that. If I couldn’t accept it, I wouldn’t be here. And I am here.”

“Frequently,” Phryne agreed, trailing her fingers up to his lips for a kiss. “I like you here.”


	328. Spotlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We look damn good if I may say so myself.” (Phryne/Lili) Requested by sheldonslog.

Lili smoothed down the front of the Chinese silk dress that Phryne had loaned her (well, given her, really, since she was a few inches shorter than Phryne, meaning the dress’s hem had to be taken up, and the sides taken in a bit at the hips), and frowned. “I wish I could say I was looking forward to this party,” she admitted aloud.

Phryne looked up from the dressing table, where she was fighting with her earrings. “Does it still not sit right? I’m sure Dot can fix it.”

“No, the dress is fine. It’s the party itself. I’m not much of a party person.”

“Now, that’s a shameless lie, if ever I’ve heard one,” Phryne teased. “I remember how you were in Tuscany.”

“Those were an entirely different sort of party,” Lili retorted, with a grin and a blooming blush at the memories that was very becoming. “I mean these society things. If I’d known Sam’s books would make him the toast of the town, I’d’ve talked him into staying on the farm.”

“Well, you’re stuck with your popular author husband now, Lil,” said Phryne breezily. “I see Sam’s books on every newsstand and at every railway station.”

“Hmph. I blame you and Jack for that. Giving him all sorts of plots, filling his head with murders and intrigues...”

“Does it really bother you that much?”

Lili sighed and turned away from the mirror. “Not exactly,” she said, sitting down on the edge of Phryne’s bed. “I’m thrilled for Sam, I am. He’s worked hard for this, what with his health and the trouble with my family, and needing to build everything back up after we had to give up the farm...”

Phryne regarded her for a moment, then reached out and clasped Lili’s hand. “You’ve worked hard too, Lil.”

“Yes. For Sam. But now... now what? It’s been so long since I had this much time to myself, and... I’ve got no kids to worry about, no hobbies to distract myself with... and as foolish as it sounds, I worry about Sam getting bored with me...”

“Sam isn’t going anywhere, dear. And as much as I adore Sam, and you know I do, I think you’ve put your husband at the forefront of your life for long enough.” Phryne leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to Lili’s lips. “It’s time you stepped into your own spotlight, and there’s no better time than the present.”

Lili raised an amused eyebrow. “What, in this dress?”

“In that _exact_ dress. One must always be dressed for the spotlight, after all.”


	329. Grapevine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Hey handsome, need a lift?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by mollidraws.

Jack abandoned the crime scene to the constables and made his way out of the house. Standing on the pavement, he rubbed his temples fitfully. 

He had slept badly the night before, his morning mail had included a stern letter from his nephew’s headmaster that was going to mean a visit to the school very soon, the call to the site of this suspicious and very bloody death had come before he’d finished his breakfast, and the rising summer heat combined with the congealing remains inside to produce a smell that even a seasoned investigator like Jack was having trouble coping. The fresh air outside, as warm as it was, was a relief. 

He had just about steeled himself to go back inside, despite the fact that Collins had insisted, while looking only slightly green in the face, that he could handle things, when a familiar purring engine wrapped in red rolled up to the curb. 

Jack blinked once or twice and then raised an eyebrow at the driver. “Going my way, lady?”

“Could be...” Phryne reached over and unlatched the passenger’s side door, and Jack slid inside gratefully. “I heard through the grapevine that there might be a certain detective-inspector who might need a drive and a meal to clear his head.”

“Then it’s a pity that you picked up me instead of that poor bugger.” Jack dropped his hat into his lap and ruffled his hair a little to let the wind through it as Phryne drove through the suburb. “So, what really brings you out this way?”

“Why do you suddenly suspect me of ulterior motives, Jack?”

Jack sank lower into the Hispano’s luxurious coachwork with a groan, and threw a smile at her. “Miss Fisher. I _always_ suspect you of ulterior motives.”


	330. Mountains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We’re spending how long with your parents?” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Jack stood in the bedroom doorway, his eyebrows climbing higher and higher into his hairline as he watched his wife dump what seemed to be the contents of their entire bureau into a single suitcase. “Exactly how long are we planning to be at your parents’ house, again?”

Rosie couldn’t help smiling at his obvious nervousness. Jack hadn’t been quite the same since returning from the war in France, but one thing that had never waned was his respectful fear of her mother. It wasn’t his fault, poor dear. Her mother had never _really_ approved of her youngest daughter marrying a tradesman’s son from Richmond, even if he was her husband’s protégé. And then when Jack had come home from the war, and Rosie’s brother Bill hadn’t... “It’s just a precaution, Jack. You know how Father can be when he gets into the mountains. A weekend can turn into three weeks at the drop of a hat.”

“Three weeks? Good Lord. Rosie, I... don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Why not? We haven’t visited with them in so long, and my sister Victoria is here from England with her husband...” She heard the wistfulness in her voice and tried to suppress it. 

Apparently she was less than successful, because Jack came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “We’ll go,” he sighed, his lips warm in her hair. “If one of your sisters is there, hopefully that’ll take your mother’s attention off me.”

“Thank you, Jack. And you and Father can be outside as much as you like. That should help.”

“Yes... a bit, yes.”

Rosie found his hands, clasped around her middle, and squeezed them.


	331. Torch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want to be lying awake at 4 AM when I’m 70 years old, thinking about all the things I should’ve done.” (Daren Colbert) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

“Tell me why,” Jack said, as they stood in the vast, chilly expanse of the hanger. “Why are you risking your life?”

“For my father, you mean?” Phryne clutched her fur collar closer around her throat with one hand, while the other scanned her torch over the fuselage of her borrowed plane. There was rust on the wing struts but it was superficial, and the plane would serve to get her and the Baron to Darwin in the north, where her own sturdy Tiger Moth was waiting for her. But the circle of electric light was too small to allow Jack to see much more of the plane, which was perhaps for the best. “Because it’s for my mother. And because this way, if he tries anything, I can just do a barrel roll and dump him out over Jakarta or something.” 

She turned the torch on Jack in time to catch his fleeting grin.

They followed the circle of light back outside to the car. The chill, quiet expanse of the airfield surrounded them, and the wind whipped at Jack’s coat and Phryne’s fur trim and the unmown grasses beyond. “I mean, why, in any circumstances,” said Jack. “Driving so fast and wild that you’re constantly in danger of crashing. Nearly drowning on stage... flying thousands of feet in the air in a contraption that’s barely more stable than a child’s balsa-wood toy. Why?”

Phryne clicked the torch off and dropped it into her pocket, and stepped into Jack’s personal space. The airfield was shut down for the night, and it took a second or two for her eyes to adjust to the near darkness, but the skies were clear and the stars bright. “Because it’s my life, Jack. Can you understand how precious that is to me? I don’t mean I want to throw my life away, but having the freedom to do with it as I please, to risk it when I feel it’s necessary, to safeguard it when I choose to – it’s the most important thing in the world to me.”

“You take so many risks,” Jack murmured. “So many chances...”

Phryne curled her fingers around the lapels of his coat and stretched up on the toes of her red leather high-heels. “Where would we be,” she asked softly, her lips a breath away from his, “if we weren’t willing to risk everything?”


	332. Tangle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet I have flesh both firm and cool,  
> And eyes tumultuous as the gems  
> Of moons and lamps in the full Thames  
> When dusk sails wavering down the pool. (Wilfrid Owen) (Jack/Bert) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

It’s just his luck, Jack grouses to himself as he walks the picket line, to catch the jeering eyes of the commos from the docks and to have to endure their taunts and jibes. “How’s it feel t’ be on the other side of the line, copper?”

It feels like hell, but they have no choice, if things are ever going to improve. So many of them came back from the war to piss-poor pay and no pensions. They are risking their lives every day to keep the city safe, the least the city owes them is a decent paycheck.

His wife doesn’t seem to understand. But the commos do. Jack isn’t sure how how feels, realizing that he has more in common with the city’s revolutionaries than with his own wife.

Rosie stays away from downtown. It’s the safest decision for her, but Jack would have appreciated even a glimpse of her. Friendly faces seem so far away now...

A smudge of blond hair and a flash of blue eyes catches his attention, and he smiles. Not so far away, after all.

He doesn’t know the bloke’s name, won’t know it until years after the strike, when Albert Johnson gets himself hauled into the station for disturbing the peace and incitement to riot. Jack never forgets his name, after that.

But at the beginning, no names are safer, for two men meeting at a flophouse by the waterfront, or in the shadows under the bridge. Especially when one of them is married, and vulnerable to police politics and newspaper slander. 

And there is no need for names, when Jack can press his body to another’s and tangle his limbs with those of his lover, and sink into his clever mouth or his pale taut backside, especially when they hide down by the bridge with the breeze from the river, and the lamps overhead dancing on the water and on the nameless man’s back.


	333. Exaggeration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Save me a spot.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by hello-beaniebeanie. 
> 
> I had a very specific request for this one... ;)

Jack leaned back heavily, both of his hands planted flat on the interrogation table, and groaned, deep in his throat, quiet enough not to be heard in the corridor, but loud enough for the ears of the woman kneeling before him. 

Or perhaps she simply _felt_ his pleasure, rumbling from his skin to her lips. 

“Phryne… for God’s sake… please…”

Phryne brushed her lips, somehow almost chastely, over the painfully sensitized skin of his cock with the delicacy of a feather. Her lipstick, warm and waxy, made her mouth drag slightly over tense veins and smooth head. “Ohh, Jack, I am so sorry, but I think we’ll have to wait, after all.”

“ _Christ_ , woman—!” Jack took in a sharp, agonized breath and let it out slowly. “This was your idea!”

“It was, and I was all for it. But even I can’t do anything quickly with _this_.” She wrapped her hand gently around his shaft. Her hand was not small, but it could not close completely. “When you said you were large, I’m afraid I thought you were indulging in a bit of masculine exaggeration.”

“Phryne. If you don’t stop teasing me, I can assure you without any kind of exaggeration that I am going to explode.”

“Sorry, Jack.” She smiled up at him apologetically and then pressed her lips firmly to the broad head of his cock. He almost couldn’t hold back that groan.

Jack looked down and saw her red lipstick print smirking up at him from the end of his penis. Phryne’s smirk matched it. “Unfortunately we have to get back to official business, but that’s a promise. I will finish what I started.”

“...I hope I can get through the day,” Jack muttered through clenched teeth, and tucked himself away with some difficulty.


	334. Unconventional

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sir, um, it’s just... I was wondering if I could ask about...” (Hugh & Jack) Requested by Anonymous.

The newly-promoted Senior Constable stammered to a halt and looked at his boss expectantly.

The response that leapt to the forefront of Jack’s mind was, “Collins, this isn’t really an appropriate work-place topic.” The second was, “Go find a family member to talk with.” But Hugh’s father was long dead and his brothers-in-law were older men who, while undoubtedly good fellows, probably would take far too much relish in indoctrinating the baby of the family. 

Jack groaned inwardly and brushed his fingertips over his eyebrows. “Right, Collins, what do you need to know? The basic birds-and-the-bees talk, or something more advanced?”

Hugh’s brief smile was blinding and bashful. “Heh, well, not _that_ advanced. Sir,” he added, clearing his throat. “But…”

“Something beyond the basics?”

“Yes, sir. It’s just… Dottie’s been living with Miss Fisher, and—” 

“Collins, if you’re intimating that your fiancée might have acquired certain expectations from her unconventional employer, then I am sorry to say that you are absolutely right to be worried.” Jack folded his hands on his blotter and waited.

“So, uh... what would you suggest, sir?” Hugh hedged.

“That you listen,” said Jack promptly. “That you let her take the lead. And that you use your imagination. You have hands. Use them. Mouth. Use it.”

“Use my mouth...” Hugh gulped. “Down... down _there_?”

“Oh yes.”

“But sir, isn’t... isn’t that, well... where a woman... goes to the loo?”

Jack blinked. _Jesus, Mary and Joseph..._ “I’ll be right back, Collins.”

He strode from his office, leaving Hugh to shift awkwardly from one booted foot to the other for ten minutes, until his boss returned carrying a heavy book. “I knew Dr. MacMillan would have what I needed.” 

Jack closed his office door and locked it firmly against intruders, and then opened the book on his desk. Hugh looked nervously and then reeled back in shock at the sight of a vividly-coloured plate illustrating a woman’s nether region. “Sir!”

“Spare me your blushes, Collins, it’s an anatomy textbook, not a copy of the _Kama Sutra_. Besides, it’s nothing you won’t be seeing every night, once you and Miss Williams are married.”


	335. Fishy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “So what do you guys have planned for Valentine’s Day?” “Murder.” “That’s the spirit.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by ladygrayluvs.
> 
> This one got a little surreal. o_O

If they had to wait in the wet salty fishy-smelling sand below the pier, Phryne pointed out, they should at least pick up some lunch to make the waiting more pleasant. So there they were, sprawled under the pier picking morsels from the greasy paper packets (and, it must be confessed, feeding one another bits of fish), when an elderly man and his dog came walking up the beach. 

“G’day,” said the man politely.

Phryne smiled up at him; Jack was busy making friends with the small brown dog, who was begging with woeful eyes for a bit of fish. 

“Lovely day, innit?” the old man continued, crouching down to eye level. “You folks on ‘oliday?”

“Actually,” said Phryne, beaming up at him, “we’re waiting to catch a murder suspect.”

“That so?” said the old fellow. His wrinkled face crinkled further with interest. “An’ it ain’t even Valentine’s Day yet...”

Phryne and Jack exchanged a look that was amused on her part and annoyed on his. “Oh, don’t worry, sir,” Jack drawled, “we’ll probably be doing much the same as this for Valentine’s Day.”

“Ah, well if that ain’t a fine thing.” The old man sighed. “You young’uns have fun, now. C’mon, Joe.” He snapped his fingers and the little dog bounded away, a large piece of fish clenched between his teeth. “You enjoy yerselves now.”

Jack and Phryne watched him go. They wore nearly identical expressions of bemusement. “Well... that was odd.”

“Yes. Yes, it was.”

“...You’re taking me somewhere nice for Valentine’s Day, of course.”

“Finish your lunch, Miss Fisher.”


	336. Ample

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That color looks lovely on you.” (Jack/Concetta) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Very very AU. ♥

Concetta looked up from her cooking as Jack entered the kitchen, not of the restaurant she owned with her brother, but of their own home. “Buonasera, mio marito,” she smiled.

Jack kissed her cheek and slid his arms around her waist. It was a little more ample than it had been when they married, but that seemed to make no difference to her Gianni. And it would become more ample yet... but Concetta was enjoying her joyous secret too much to share with him just yet. Another day, perhaps… “Work was good?”

“It was productive. Miss Fisher and I finally managed to track the McCarthy killer to her hiding place.” Jack kissed his wife’s cheek again. “She was exactly where you suggested, in the apartment above the chemist’s shop.” He turned Concetta around so he could kiss her properly. “You’re brilliant, cara mia.”

Concetta laughed. “Grazie.”

“Miss Fisher wants you to go into business with her.”

“You may tell Phryne, again, that if I had wanted to be a detective, I would not have married one. And tell her she must come for dinner soon,” she added, returning to her sauce. 

Jack hovered expectantly. Concetta giggled and scooped up a spoonful of the tomato sauce. “Come, then, and try it.” He grinned and licked the spoon eagerly, devouring her cooking in much the same way as he devoured her.

“Delicious, as always.”

Concetta tugged her lower lip between her teeth and gazed at Jack warmly, holding back a rather lustful hum. “You have sauce on your face, Gianni,” she teased, admiring the rich bright red against his clear olive skin. She leaned in and licked the sauce from his cheek.


	337. Staccato

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It all goes so spectacularly wrong that it goes right.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested firesign23.

“There’s no room,” Jack said.

What? “What do you mean, ‘there’s no room? I thought the owner of this inn was a friend of yours.”

Jack got into the car and pulled the door shut, hard. His annoyance pulsed through the chill air. “I thought so as well, Miss Fisher. But it seems that the room won’t suit us... or rather, we won’t suit the room.”

His deep tone spoke of tightly-controlled anger, and in the faint light that reached the car from the pub, I saw his face in profile, his jaw taut, his lips compressed, his nostrils flaring with each quick, outraged breath. I can admit now that, in spite of the spanner thrown into our plans, I was more than a little aroused. An irritated Jack was always a gorgeous thing. It gives me so much to play with.

“Surely there’s somewhere else in town for us to stay.” He jumped slightly at the sensation of my gloved hand sliding over his thigh. Oh, but he was tightly wound...

“Nowhere but a few private homes.”

Jack was fighting the urge to relax into the touch, I could see that much. I could also see that his righteous indignation at his chum's bad manners was not going to work in our favor in the morning. “Well! Then I guess we’ll just have to rough it tonight.”

“And where do you propose we do that, Miss Fisher? We have to set up our position before dawn, if were to have any chance of catching our suspect.”

‘Our.’ It thrills me to this day. “We had to cross a low ridge to get here. We can park the car up there and snuggle in the back seat.”

The word ‘snuggle’ finally coaxed a warm flicker of a smile from Jack’s lips. “I do have a blanket in the boot.”

“I know.”

“But it might get very cold tonight.”

“I know.”

It was too dark to see Jack’s eyes, but with my hand inching further and further up his thigh to the crux of his trousers, it was easy for me to imagine his pupils dilating, his eyes growing dark and hungry. His breathing, already quick with irritation, shifted into a more familiar staccato, and within his trousers, his cock was hard beneath my firm hand.


	338. Luminous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Only if you want to.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> I really hope I haven't posted this before... Forgive me if I have, I'm tired and digging to the bottom of my backlog here.

She undressed him without thinking. Her hands remembered the way to unknot his tie without looking, to unfasten his sleeve and collar studs and slip them into his trouser pockets, to unbutton his shirt without popping the buttons off. She slid the familiar red braces from his shoulders, and only then did he step back to pull the singlet over his head. 

Rosie couldn’t help it; at the sight of his chest, she let out a sigh. “You always were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.” 

He smiled shyly. “That’s nice to hear, as I close in on the forty-year mark.” Rosie calmly slid the shimmery nightgown from her shoulders. Jack’s eyes were very blue and almost luminous. “And you’re even more beautiful than the first time we went to bed together.”

“Which is _very_ nice to hear, closing in on the forty-year mark,” Rosie replied with a little smirk. But the sincerity of his admiration did make her heart quiver a bit. Jack had never been one for frivolous compliments. What he said, he meant.

“Come here,” he said softly, drawing her into his arms. He slid his hand into her loose brown curls and kissed her slowly, stroking her cheekbone with his thumb, stroking his tongue against hers, remembering the contours of her mouth easily, and Rosie was surprised at how easy it was to recall the best way to mold against him, to arch her breasts against his chest and press her quim up against his erection, making a half-moon of her body until almost her entire weight was supported solely by Jack’s single hand splayed across the center of her back.

When the hand in her hair joined the hand on her back, Rosie wrapped her arms around Jack’s neck and held on. He picked her up easily and carried her to the bed, laying her down and, before stepping back, stealing a lick across her breast that made her squeak. “Brat,” she said with a scowl. But it faded as he shucked off the rest of his clothes. There was a solemn, faraway look in his eyes that Rosie hated to see. It reminded her too much of the long-ago awful nights right after his return from France. She hadn’t known then what... what she knew now. “Will you tell me?” she asked quietly. “Can you tell me?”

Jack hesitated visibly. It was in every tense line of his nude body, in the stiff carriage of his neck and head. “Am I setting us both up for more heartache by doing this?” he asked quietly. “This... I know what this will mean to you and me, but to others...”

“Jack. Just for tonight... to hell with the others. To hell with everyone.” Rosie felt the tears again, and knew this time why they were there. “We spend so much of our lives caring about what other people think and feel about us, living our lives in the open. Just for once...”

“Banish the proud world,” he murmured, with the beginnings of the slight slow smile that always melted her. 

“Yes... is that a quotation?”

“I think so. I don’t recall from where, but... it seems... apt.” He shook his head and sighed and returned to the moment. He looked at Rosie’s bare, creamy-skinned body for a second or two, and then tugged his lower lip between his teeth. “I want you, sweetheart,” he said quietly, as though his erection hadn’t made that plain. Strangely, he seemed not to notice the insistent twitching of his cock. “I want you.”

“There’s no shame in that, dear Jack.” Rosie settled back against the pillows and held out her arms. “I’m here. That’s never changed.”

His smile widened, though there was still something haunted that lingered in his eyes. “And thank God for that.”


	339. Necessity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m quite certain it wasn’t meant for that.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by mollidraws.

From far away, Jack heard a groan. It was a piteous sound, deep and pained and just the tiniest bit resigned, as if to say ‘Not this again…’ It took him several moments to realize that the groan was coming from himself. 

“Ssh… hold still, Jack.” 

Phryne’s voice sounded very loud, and her fingers, light and delicate though they were, felt heavy on his head. Jack locked his lips together, but he couldn’t hold back a small whimper of pain. 

“It feels like just a bad bump.” 

Jack tried to open his eyes, to see her expression, to see if she was trying to reassure him over with a lie. Dim lights brightened in a burst and stabbed and his eyeballs. He grimaced tightly and tried to turn his face into Phryne’s hands. 

“Lie still for a minute, Jack. I’ll be right back, I promise.”

He listened to her retreat, the sounds phasing in and out of clarity and coherence. He couldn’t remember what had happened… he only knew that he had been hit. Again. 

The sounds came back, and the ground (ground?) beside Jack’s head crunched terrible and loud in his ears. “This might sting a bit,” Phryne warned him, gently rolling him onto his side, so that his cheek was resting on her thigh as she knelt. 

Jack braced himself for the pain, but what he experienced more than anything else was _cold_ , a sudden soft freezing pressure against the side of his head. “Feels nice,” he mumbled thickly. Her skirt was warm under his cheek and smelled familiarly of her. “Ice?”

“Snow, from outside.”

He frowned, trying to track down whatever was niggling him but stumbling tiredly through his thought processes. “Snow? …What’s it in?” 

Phryne’s free hand combed through his hair. “Just my brassiere, Jack. Nothing important.”

“…’S not what it’s for…”

“Well, necessity is the mother of invention, after all. Trust me, this thing serves far better as an icepack than as a foundation garment.” Jack heard the grimace in her voice. “That’s a shop I’ll never patronize again.”


	340. Vineyards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s misbehave.” (Sam/Phryne/Lili) Requested by sheldonslog.

Phryne prowled her parlour in subdued excitement, waiting for her guests to arrive. It had been years since she had seen Sam and Lillian – only five years, really, but in a life as full as hers, it felt like much longer, since the three of them had been in Tuscany together, the long warm lazy days of picnicking and lovemaking in the vineyards surrounding their rented villa (with both Sam _and_ Lillian, and sometimes both at once), so say nothing of their adventures in Valerio’s castle… 

“Mr. and Mrs. Elsworth, to see you, Miss Fisher,” Mr. Butler announced, with a professionally serene smile. 

“Thank you, Mr. Butler,” she said, but she had eyes only for her old friends. “You two…” Phryne began, and then Sam grinned his rogue’s grin at her and Lili sauntered forward and kissed her soundly, and all Phryne could do was laugh. 

“Oh,” she sighed, still smiling, “this is going to be a _fun_ visit.”


	341. Experience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Never a lip is curved with pain / That can't be kissed into smile again.” (Brete Harte) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Men, in Phryne’s experience, were good for entertainment. For dancing with _(“I think we’re more of a waltz, Miss Fisher.”)_ , for teasing _(“I’m fairly convinced fan feathers wouldn’t work for me.”)_ , for amorous entanglements that always had to be kept brief, no matter what they wanted or thought they could get from her _(“I’m not asking you to give it up. I would never ask you to do that.” “So you’re giving up me instead?”)_. For the occasional relaying of a confidence _(“I lost her, Jack. I lost her.”)_. The idea of a friendship with a man was appealing, but utterly separate from the idea of seducing a man, in her experience. And both stood completely apart from the very thought of loving a man. _(“Sounds serious.” “It is.”)_

“Phryne?”

“Jack.”

“You’re shivering. Come back to bed.”

“I’m not cold.”

“I know.” His voice was gentle. 

She turned away from the window and felt her way back to the bed. The room was his, and unfamiliar, the bare floorboards cold beneath her toes. But between the sheets, Jack was warm. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“Of a sort... yes...”

His sensitive fingertips traced her face in the darkness, and then he kissed her. Phryne relaxed into his touch, and smiled.

She did so enjoy new experiences.


	342. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If I try, I might be able to fly my way out.” (Jack/Lyle Compton) Requested by meldanya44.
> 
> …Look, I don’t make up these prompts, I just write them.

At the very beginning of the Virginia Forbes Alias James Manning case, Phryne had said that he and Compton were very much alike, and that she thought Jack would like him. Jack recalled replying that one didn’t necessarily follow the other. 

But as he stood beside the group captain, pouring over maps and charts and trying to track the last flight of a doomed pilot, whose body had been shipped home from overseas under mysterious circumstances (the most mysterious of which, in Jack’s opinion, were those that required a civilian police officer to assist on a military matter), he couldn’t help agreeing with Phryne’s assessment. 

Damn her eyes. She knew his hidden desires all too well.

“He had a shattered pelvis, a bunch of other broken bones, and a bullet hole in his temple,” Compton said at last. “Suicide.”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes. He was… James wasn’t the only pilot who I was trying to protect.

Jack sighed and closed his eyes, trying not to remember. He had been a soldier once. He knew… he knew enough. 

“I’m going to have to tell his partner how he died. The fellow’s in hospital, has been since nineteen-eighteen.” Compton stared at the coroner’s report, at the maps, at the dead man’s diary, which had been recovered from the crash site. “I have to tell him that his lover shot himself.”

“He doesn’t need to know. The plane crashed. That’s all. Not even you could’ve gotten out of that.”

Compton’s dark eyes grew darker. He seemed to be trying not to remember things, too. “The plane went down. Not the same as a fatal crash, not necessarily. He’d know. And he’d know that he wasn’t enough to keep this fellow alive.” He looked at the evidence once more and then closed the folder in dismay. 

Jack had to look away. His heart was in his throat. 

Damn Phryne’s eyes. 

“Let’s call it a night,” said Jack quietly. “There’s a pub I know… or my house isn’t far away.”

Compton’s lips tipped up briefly, under his mustache. “You have whiskey, I hope.”

“I do, yes.”

“And a spare bed? Because I’m probably going to drink all of your whiskey.”

“There’s a spare bed, if you want it.”

Compton’s little grin faded, but the darkness in his eyes faded as well, replaced by something warmer. “Sounds like a plan.”


	343. Shameless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s do it.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

“What, right now?”

“Yes. This very minute. This very _second_ , even.”

An indulgent smile, then a gasp and a groan as lips met throat. “Why the – _oh_ – why the sudden impetuosity?”

“Do you object?”

“In practical terms? Absolutely. It’s mad, bad, and dangerous to life. But otherwise I’ve no objections – oh _God_ , keep doing that… I just want to know why.”

“Because we can. Because we’re together and I feel like the world is at our fingertips. Because I don’t know how long this feeling will last and I want to take shameless advantage of it while we can.”

Another smile, this one hot and breathless. “Well then, what are we waiting for?”


	344. Probably

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You were meant to be watching him!” (Jack/Bert) Requested by firesign23.

Panting, Bert dropped his head onto Jack’s sweaty chest. The bedroom of the safe-house was hot, and they had only added to the temperature. “Somehow,” Jack said, sounding rather breathless, “I doubt this is what Miss Fisher had in mind when she told me to keep an eye on you.”

It took a minute, but Bert drew enough air into his lungs to laugh with. “Wouldn’t bet on it, Robinson. What Miss Fisher don’t know for certain, she can imagine.”

“You really think she imagined us in bed together while I’m meant to be protecting you from a murderous blackmailer?”

Bert thought about that for a second or two, and then shrugged. “Yeah, probably.” He rose up on his hands and kissed Jack hard, grinding down on Jack’s cock.

Jack groaned loud and then laughed. “Yeah, probably.”


	345. Glimpse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Stars should not be seen alone. That’s why there are so many. Two people should stand together and look at them. One person alone will surely miss the good ones.” (Augusten Borroughs) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

The night air in the countryside was warm for that time of year, but Jack Robinson pulled his new dark gray trench coat more securely around him. He caught a glimpse of the red lining at his throat, bright in the light of a million stars. Phryne had insisted on the red lining.

She drew closer to him for more than warmth, as they stood in the field, quite alone but for the stars and the sea of poppies and their memories. Slipping her hand into his coat pocket, she found his fingers and gripped them tightly.

Jack looked up and saw patterns in the stars that had faded into memory, each one associated with an explosion, a dead mate, a failed charge over the top. He could hear the ghosts of gunfire and screaming horses, and smell the unforgiveable purgatory of the trenches. If he tried, he could probably find precisely where his company’s position had been, just by the stars…

He didn’t try. Instead, he put his coat around Phryne and pulled her against his side.


	346. Dreamy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not pinning this on me!” (Bert & Cec) Requested by Anonymous.

“Right,” said the burly pub owner sternly, her stout arms crossed over her bosom and her blue eyes burning beneath her red hair, “which a’ you diggers do I hafta thrash first?”

Bert gulped; Cec twisted his cap worriedly between his hands. They’d known Molly for years. If they got off with a shiner apiece, they’d be lucky. “Look, Moll—” Cec started.

“You lads know I don’t stand for no brawlin’ in my pub!” she snapped. “So if this is how you act when my back’s turned, Albert Johnson—” 

“Aw no – you wanna throw us out for fightin’, Molly, go right ahead. But we didn’t start that fight.” Bert couldn’t help a dreamy grin. “Bloody well finished it, though.”


	347. Bewitching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve only heard his point of view. You never asked mine.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

The minutes were ticking by, and the darkness, and the safety it offered from convention and decorum, rapidly slipping away. Phryne curled closer against Jack’s side as they sat in the window seat. “Did you ever read ‘Sense and Sensibility’?”

Jack’s chest rose and fell slightly with the expulsion of a soft, husky laugh. “Many times.”

“Do you remember what Elinor says to her sister, when she speaks of the idea of single attachment?”

It took Jack a second or two, to draw the words into the forefront of his mind, but he’d always had an excellent memory for prose and poetry and could reel off bits from his favourites by the hour. “‘And after all, Marianne, after all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and constant attachment, and all that can be said of one’s happiness depending entirely on any particular person, it is not meant - it is not fit - it is not possible that it should be so.’” He was silent for a moment. “That bit?”

“Yes.” Gently, Phryne’s fingertips stroked the skin of Jack’s throat, where his tie had been loosened, some hours ago. “Do you believe it?”

“…I did, once.”

“What happened to change your mind?”

“Naturally, Miss Fisher, I met you. And I started to realize that there are many different kinds of… happiness. Not all of which need to be tied to a single person. And some of which, against all my better judgment, is inextricably tied to one particular person.”

“…The last thing I want is someday for Jane to be flying you halfway round the world back to me, because I think I can’t live without you.”

“I have faults enough, Miss Fisher, but being of the same cast as your father is not one of them.”


	348. Miniature

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He has kind eyes.” (Jack & Nico) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Nico Berger is omgimsarahtoo‘s creation, from her wonderful story [Continuing Education](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5519474). ♥

_Ding ding ding!_

Nico looked up from his botany homework. His father, Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson, ignored the disturbance and went on with his paperwork, so Nico tried to do the same. 

_Ding ding ding!_

“Papa, someone is at the front desk.”

“I noticed. Leave it for Constable Clinton.”

Nico bent over his book again and tried to resume taking notes on Gregor Mendel.

 _Ding ding ding!_ “Oi! Ain’t there a single cop in this city who’ll give the time’a day to a sozzled old lady?”

Nico pressed his lips together hard, to keep from giggling. His father and Phryne had taught him that everyone had a right to be treated with respect, just as his mama (God rest her soul) had said that everyone was worthy of compassion. But sometimes he forgot, and he had once been soundly punished for pointing and laughing at a feeble-minded boy he had seen at a fair. 

“Sorry, Papa,” he muttered, trying to shake off his grin. But when he stole a cautious look at his father, he saw that Jack was smiling, too.

“Put the book down for a bit, Nic. There’s someone I want you to meet.” He got up from his desk and went to lean in his office doorway.

_Ding ding ding!_

“Leave the bell alone, Else, you’ll wear it out. What seems to be the trouble?” 

“Trouble! Where’s the young lamb who oughter be here shushin’ me, eh? ‘E’s the trouble!”

“That’s a very good question… but in the meantime, what can I do for you, Elsie? Hm? What is it this time? House burgled, pockets picked, or you lost your keys in a ditch somewhere?” 

Nico was surprised to hear his stern professional father speaking with teasing fondness to the drunk old woman. He got up and crept carefully towards the door, hanging back a little, curious to see. 

“Eh, whichever’a those three I ain’t used in a while, Jack,” replied Elsie, a brown-faced little gnome in a floppy hat. She caught sight of Nico, and he gulped.

Elsie’s eyes widened. “Blimey, I need t’ dry out more’n I thought.” She rubbed her eyes hard. “I’m seein’ doubles.”

Jack chuckled. “In a manner of speaking.” He put a hand on Nico’s shoulder. “Else, this is my son Nicolas.” Nico almost melted into the floor at the quiet pride in his long-lost father’s voice. “Nico, this is Mrs. Elsie Tizzard, one of Melbourne’s old guard, and the first person I ever arrested.”

For few moments, the old woman stared at Nico, a little stunned. Then she seemed to wake up. “Well, if that don’t beat all…”

Nico nodded to her, unsure if he should offer his hand. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Madame—er, ma’am.”

Elsie smiled. “That’s a sweet little Frenchie boy you’ve got there, Jack. How old are ya, luv?”

“Fourteen, ma’am.”

“Fourteen, y’know, I remember when my Matthew was fourteen. Ev’ryone says it’s the worst age for boys, but my Mattie, he never gave me a bit’a trouble. ‘Ow’s he doin’, Jacky?”

“Very nicely. He should be out in six years, provided he doesn’t make any more escape attempts.”

“‘E won’t,” said Elsie stoutly, “not if I have anythin’ t’ say about it.” She beamed at Jack, and at Nico. “Best cop this side of the river, your dad. Yer lucky t’ have him.”

“Yes,” said Nico shyly. “I know.”

Elsie peered intently at him. “‘E’s got your eyes, Jacky.”

Nico frowned in confusion. He knew he looked like Jack in miniature, but his eyes were a pale ice-blue, inherited from his mother. 

“Eyes like my Mattie, too. Kind eyes.”

“Yes,” said Jack, squeezing Nico’s shoulder lightly, “he does.”


	349. Revolve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Fall in love with  
> the sound of her  
> voice before  
> anything else;
> 
> it will be the first  
> thing you will lose  
> when she is  
> gone”
> 
> (Emma Bleker) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Sometimes when Jack was feeling especially low, he would go to Wardlow. The Collinses boarded there, with their new baby, in the absence of the house’s mistress, as did Tobias Butler, serenely maintaining an establishment on the off-chance that Phryne would come waltzing in one day, unexpected and unannounced, and demand a g-and-t and a cordon bleu meal.

She would, too, all smiles. It was like her.

Supper was always genial, and the company welcome, but after the meal Jack would withdraw to the parlour, alone. He would put one of her records on the gramophone and revolve slowly about the room, absently running his hand over the mantle and bookshelves and the backs of chairs, letting the music take him back to when Phryne had been there. Her birthday (the two of them separated and yet strangely together)… Hugh and Dottie’s engagement party (he could still taste the champagne on Phryne’s lips, as heady as the sound of her throaty voice in his ears)… the night (the long glorious night) he had come to her from Strano’s.

And he wished, at the end of every song, that he had a recording of her voice to listen to, to sustain him just a little bit longer.


	350. Diamond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We can fix this.” (Jane) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

Jane clung to her friend Ruth as they both curled together in their thin filthy bed. Downstairs, they could hair Mr. Merton and Miss Gay, drunk and arguing with the boarders. 

The room where all the girls slept was locked from the outside, and the window was nailed shut. But tonight the door was locked from the inside, too—Jane had cobbled together some broken bed slats and jammed them under the knob, so at least none of the men would get to have their pick tonight.

“One of these days,” she whispered to Ruth, “one of these days, I’m gonna nick a diamond from some rich lady, and I’m going to hide it from ‘im. Then at night I’m going to take that diamond and cut a hole in that window glass, and we’re all getting out of here. We’ll find your gran, Ruthie.”

Ruth smiled sadly. It was an old story, and a hopeless one. They’d all tried to hide treasures from The Great Hypno, and it never worked. “What about you, Jane? Where’ll you go?”

Jane thought of the asylum where they’d taken her mother, and the state home where she herself had run away from. “I’ll figure something out,” she said, squeezing her friend tightly. “I always do.”


	351. Flicker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “i do not want to have you  
> to fill the empty parts of me  
> i want to be full on my own  
> i want to be so complete  
> i could light a whole city  
> and then  
> i want to have you  
> cause the two of us combined  
> could set it on fire” (Rupi Kaur) 
> 
> I completely lost track of chapters and missed the chance to do something special for my 350th drabble, so here’s a bonus drabble. ♥ Also, apparently I need to make up for breaking so many people. XD

Paris flickered and gleamed beneath them. “The last time I was in this city,” Jack commented, his arm firm and warm around Phryne’s shoulders, “I thought I’d never felt so lost and alone in my entire life.”

Phryne pressed closer against him, and wrapped her arms around his torso. “This is lovely,” she sighed. 

“It is.” Jack’s voice was husky with emotion, but only for one brief moment. That was how they could best be together, in quick hushed moments that were both too little and too much, that went on for an eternity and burned so hot that the world seemed on fire, and then were over in the blink of an eye. “Should we be up here?”

“Mmm… possibly not. But I know someone who knows someone. They’ll vouch that we’re not about to harm the Eiffel Tower. It’s fine. And I wanted you to see the City of Lights.”

“With you.”

“Yes… with me.”

“Glad I'm here?”

“Yes,” Phryne said, smiling promisingly. “I’m glad you're here, Jack.”


	352. Asymmetrical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “They’d be a very elegant couple.” (Rosie/Lili) Requested by meldanya44.

Rosie realized, very belatedly, that to those of Melbourne society ‘in the know’, it must have seemed like a foregone conclusion that one day the city would see her discreetly stepping out with Mrs. Lillian Elsworth. After all, Lili and her author-husband Sam were quietly notorious in their pursuit of other people’s spouses, and they seemed to always do things in tandem. And they were both so _very_ intimate with Rosie’s dear friend and former husband Jack, that to some, her own ‘friendship’ with Lili was seen as nothing more than a logical progression of seduction, entirely cool and predatory.

But it hadn’t been like that at all.

They had met, not for the first time, at House de Fleuri, when Phryne had decided to treat Rosie to an elegant new evening gown for her birthday. The baron’s daughter had rather taken to her favourite lover’s disgraced ex-wife (to the end of her life, Rosie would refuse to accept that it was solely her father’s shame to bear), and Rosie was too grateful for Phryne’s kindness to bother being jealous or proud. And Lili had been there, for a fitting.

Somehow the salon had been so busy that they had ended up inspecting themselves in the same long mirror. 

Rosie’s dress was a long-sleeved, close-fitting garment that did marvelous things to her bosom, of a deep rich sapphire, with a feathery pattern that shimmered invitingly, almost coyly, when she moved. Lili’s gown was far more modern in design and showed far more skin, and was constructed of an opal silk that only a very fair woman like herself would ever dream of wearing. It clung to her slim figure and seemed to change colours as she twirled this way and that, and the short asymmetrical hem lengthened her petite frame and made her legs look as though they went on forever.

Phryne stood back and admired them both. “What an utterly elegant couple you make,” she said approvingly.

Lili had laughed at that, but the little blush on her cheeks and the slight quickening of her breath had matched Rosie’s own, and when she caught Lili’s eye, she saw promise there.

So she wasn’t surprised that people thought she and Lili were a foregone conclusion. It certainly felt fated to Rosie.


	353. Lethal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Have I ever shown you my Colombian emeralds?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by JackPhryne4eva.

“What do you think, Jack?”

Jack Robinson stood in the doorway of Phryne’s parlour, and considered. “Well,” he said at last, after glancing at his wristwatch, “I do suppose it could be considered a less dangerous hour.”

“I thought so,” Phryne purred from her reclining position on the chaise lounge.

“And what you are wearing is... definitely not a dress.”

“No,” agreed Phryne, a sultry smile beginning to curl across her face.

Jack’s gaze lingered appreciatively on the vibrant green emeralds about her throat, and the velvety black fox fur stole draped caressingly over her bare shoulders, demurely covering her breasts and trailing its tips down towards her navel and beyond, perfectly matched to the lush, neat black curls at the apex of her thighs. 

“But I’m not convinced,” he said, husky-voiced, and hungrily tonguing the tip of one canine, “that it isn’t altogether lethal.”


	354. Vamp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You wanna bet?” (Jack/Bert) Requested by meldanya44.

“You a bettin’ man, Robinson?”

Jack barely glanced away from his view through his binoculars, with which he was watching (from a safe distance) Miss Fisher attempt to ensnare a suspect on the back terrace of an elite supper club. “Depends,” he said to the driver of the cab. “What’s the bet?”

“A fiver that Miss Fisher leaves us out ‘ere all night while she gets ‘er rocks off wi’ that bloke.”

Jack snorted. “I’m not taking that bet. It’d just be giving my money away.” He watched Phryne vamp their suspect for a little longer. Then he sighed. It was starting to look like one of _those_ stakeouts. “So what d’you and Cec do to pass the time on these all-night jobs?”

A hand slip surreptitiously over the crotch of Jack’s trousers, and he jumped. He finally tore his eyes from the binoculars and found Bert staring at him with a curious intensity. “Bet I can get you off quicker’n you can do me.”

Jack swallowed. “I’m not taking that bet, either,” he said huskily. “But you’re still more than welcome to try.”


	355. Punishment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re a bad influence, Jack Robinson.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.
> 
> Follow-up to [Chapter 333: “Exaggeration”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/15397906).

Phryne came to the front door, wrapped in a dressing gown. “Jack,” she said in some surprise. “What—?”

He didn’t give her the opportunity to finish her sentence. He pushed open the door and pushed Phryne up against the most convenient wall. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, holding her head steady.

Her eyes flashed with amusement and arousal. “Well, there is a rather interesting device waiting for me in the boudoir... but it’s far less interesting than you.”

“In that case, if you don’t mind,” Jack growled between hungry kisses that were almost all teeth and tongue, “would you please have the courtesy—” He grabbed her hand and pushed it between them, against the crux of his suit trousers. “—to finish what you bloody well started?”

Phryne’s smile was one of pure lust. 

She dragged him into the parlour, tearing impatiently at his jacket and waistcoat and braces and trousers, pushed him onto the chaise and dropped to her knees. And then she took her time, working her mouth and throat around the entire length of his cock until her face nuzzled among his pubic hair, relishing his helpless groans the entire way. 

Then she climbed into his lap and oh-so-carefully speared herself on his cock. Jack untied her dressing gown so that he could see and touch her glorious naked body. Phryne stripped off the rest of his clothes, his shirt and singlet, and rode him with agonizing slowness for as long as she could bear to, and then she rode him hard. They peaked at the same time, his shout and her scream echoing through the elegant house. 

Afterward, sweating and spent and rather stunned, Jack couldn’t help taunting her gently. “You see?” he murmured, kissing her temple. “This is what comes of teasing me.”

“Well,” Phryne replied, panting, “I’m all in favour of making the punishment fit the crime.”


	356. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Could you be happy here with me?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> Inspired by [a prompt](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/53910421) from Dhaskoi.

“But it all looks very still to me.”

“That’s because you’re not a telescope.”

In his own time and place, it would have been taken for the teasing endearment it was. Judging by the look Phryne gave him, though, it didn’t translate into English properly.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment, where you’re from?”

More than a compliment, where an eye that could see the movement of the stars was akin to a gift from the divine. He was trying to say that she was only mortal, only human, that she was not responsible for the actions of others. But then, he suspected, she rarely felt anything else _but_ human in his presence, since she had found out… better not to mention it. “More like a romantic overture,” he said decisively, turning away from the contemplation of the stars, still so unfamiliar after all this time, and looking to Phryne instead. 

She eyed him as she might a potential new conquest, rather than a trusted partner. She had never _really_ look at him like that before. It was… exciting. “That was a little too subtle for me, I’m afraid,” she said, her lips tilting invitingly at their corners. “Is that the best you can do?”

Jack was nothing if not adaptable. “Would you like me to improve upon it?”

“…More than anything.”

He reached for her and drew her close, slipping one hand under her coat and around her waist. Her body was warm despite the cool air. He could feel the heat of her radiating from beneath her crepe blouse. Her hand came to rest, lightly, wonderingly, on his elbow, and she gazed up at him, stunned and blissful and expectant.

She wanted him to kiss her. He had kissed her, once before, in a moment when all his experience and training and knowledge of the human species fled from him in a panic, and his only thought was to distract her. Rosie had often kissed him, to distract him from his work, in earlier and better years, so that was the method he instinctively sought for. In retrospect, it had not been in the least appropriate, either for a man in his position _or_ for a woman in Phryne’s situation. But it had worked… and for the first time since his arrival, it had driven away all his thoughts of home. _She_ was home. Simple as that. And he longed for that moment to happen again.

But he smelled the polonium a millisecond before Phryne’s attention was caught by a blue glow over his shoulder. “Jack,” she breathed, and slipped out of his arms.

Jack clenched his jaw tightly. _Damn,_ he thought, or the approximation thereof, in languages that had never once been uttered on Earth.


	357. Satisfaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Go and live with her, then! See if I care.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> I had a very specific requested scenario for this one. ;)

Between afterglow and sleep, Jack made his announcement. “Concetta’s asked me to move in with her.”

Phryne raised her head from its comfortable spot on his chest. “Jack, that’s wonderful!” The bedside lamp was still on – Phryne would never deny herself the sight of his body or the satisfaction of watching his face when he came – and her face, voice and eyes shone with delight. “Does this mean the wedding’s not far off?”

“Yes. Now that we’ve convicted her husband’s murderer, there’s really no reason to put it off any longer… and she tells me she’s ready to be a wife again. In all senses of the word.”

Phryne kissed him tenderly. “She needed time. It was never about you.’

“I know.” Jack stroked her back with light, thoughtful fingers. “Will you be all right? I think Concetta might not mind if I continued with you – she has very European views on what a man’s duty in marriage is, but…”

“You know, Jack, you remind me very much of my friend Peter. Not the anarchist; a duke’s younger son. He’s very fond of the company of ladies, but as his godmother once said to me, he prefers to keep to one woman at a time.” Phryne hugged Jack tightly. “I’ll be _fine_ , darling, and you, quite frankly, need a wife.”

“Thank you, Phryne.”

“But if you cut me out of your investigations, I warn you, I will play the part of woman scorned to the bloody hilt.”

“Perish the thought,” said Jack gravely. “I wouldn’t know what to do, without you.”


	358. Histrionic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It’s seven am. I just watched you pour red wine into your coffee, stare me straight in the eye, say ‘I’m gonna die,’ and chug it.” (Phryne & Guy) Requested by blackkitty9.

“Oh God, Phryne, don’t bounce around so.” Guy Stanley raised his bloodshot eyes from the cocoon of his arms and stared tragically at his cousin. “I think I’m dying. No, sorry, I _am_ dying, and all you can do is flit about like a damned… Cottingley fairy, while I sit here and desiccate.”

“For heaven’s sake, Guy, all I did was walk to the sideboard to fetch a boiled egg.” Phryne dropped into a chair at the dining room table as graceful and cool as a twist of silk. “It’s not as if I was demonstrating my barefoot dancing again. Have some coffee and don’t be so histrionic. You always were prone to hideously melodramatic hangovers, but this is positively ghastly.”

“Histronic, indeed! I’ll have you know that my beloved adores my theatricality. Besides, it’s a family trait, and you’re far worse than me.”

_Oh, what rot,_ Phryne said to herself, and then smiled with exaggerated sweetness. “But Guy, _I’m_ not the reason Isabella’s confined to her room—” 

Guy groaned. “Don’t say it…”

“—heavily pregnant—”

“Don’t say it!”

“—probably with twins!” Phryne finished.

Guy stared at her in bleary dismay and then dropped his head back onto his arms. 

Phryne ate her breakfast in triumphant silence.


	359. Unique

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  “I’m sorry, what did you just say?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

Phryne stared at her pet detective inspector in delighted, but somewhat stunned, amazement. "I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you properly just now, Jack. Would you mind repeating yourself?"

"I believe I said, 'Thank you for your invaluable assistance, Miss Fisher.'"

"No, no, after that."

"After that, I seem to recall declaring my undying admiration and affection for you, and suggesting that I take you out for a moderately expensive supper before retiring scandalously to a hotel room together, for the night."

"No, _before_ that."

"Before? Before, before..." Jack made a show of thinking very dramatically, and then he snapped his long fingers. "Of course! I had a note from the Chief Commissioner this morning. He's decided to award you with a civilian commendation, for the many 'unique' services you've rendered to the Victoria Police Force."

Phryne's smile became one of complete delight. "Jack! How wonderful!"

He perched on the edge of his desk and watched her with careful fondness. "Congratulations. I'm very glad you have your priorities in order, Miss Fisher."

"Absolutely I do. Now. I believe you said something about supper and scandal...?"


	360. Territory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve just been asking him if he waves his hair with the curling-tongs.” (Jack & Writer’s Choice) Requested by meldanya44.

Group-Captain Compton, having nothing else to do, seated himself in Miss Fisher's spot on the corner of Jack's desk.

_Oh, dear Christ, it's like they're scent-marking each other's territory._ "Can I _help_ you, Captain?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, I was just staring at your hair."

"...Sorry?"

"Your hair. That length. Those curls." Compton reached out to touch them; Jack jerked away. "How is that regulation?"

"It's a privilege that comes with rank," said Jack stiffly. "And the curls are natural."

"They'd better be. I'd hate to think of you slaving away with tongs and rollers just to shellac the things against your head."

"You should see him when the pomade comes out," Phryne purred from the doorway, where she had been listening.

Lyle grinned like a cat. Jack scowled and tried desperately not to blush.


	361. Scarlet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Have you read the newspaper stories about my wife?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Jack groaned rather impressively when Phryne told him that she had gone to Harry Harper’s funeral. “But,” he conceded, “better you than me. Did you uncover anything?”

She told him about the ice. “Beyond that, nothing, except that your former wife seems very protective of Celia Harper.” Phryne made a wry face. “Rosie practically accused me of hunting for scarlet women.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Oh? And what did you say?”

“The truth, of course, which is that I’d never presume to judge a woman on the basis of her morals.” She frowned at her colleague. “I can’t decide if you’re amused or outraged.”

“Surprised, mainly, that you’ve never heard any of the things that used to be said about Rosie. She used to be very... But they’re old stories, and George Sanderson pulled in a lot of favours to keep the scandal out of the press. No reason really why you should have heard, all these years later.” He shrugged. “It was before we were married. She wanted to be respectable.”

“…Oh dear. Jack, I swear, I didn’t know.”

“I believe it. And I doubt Rosie thinks you meant anything personal by it.” Jack reached for the decanter and a pair of glasses. “But she’s tried very hard to put all that behind her, so… well, don’t be surprised if she’s a little chilly towards you, from now on.”


	362. Redundant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I love you, you asshole.” (Jack/Lyle) Requested by meldanya44.
> 
> Standard old-school “Don’t like, don’t read! :D” disclaimers apply. ♥

It had been a terrible day. 

There was a rash of gruesome murders in the city that were running Jack and his men ragged, with taunting letters from the culprit being printed in all the papers. Lyle was engaged in new maneuvers with new recruits and all under the critical moist eye of top Flying Corps brass of the sort that had never seen the inside of a cockpit before, let alone seen combat.

It was hot. Jack’s orchids were wilting pitifully. The glue was melting out from the backs of Lyle’s carefully preserved stamps. The dog had taken up residence in the shallow cellar and refused to come out except at mealtimes. Phryne had decamped to the mountains with her Aunt Prudence and Lyle’s ten-year-old daughter. 

Dinner was a sullen affair of sandwiches and milk, which had to be drunk before it went off. Both men were too deeply sunk into their own foul moods to take much notice of each other. Contrary to house rules, Jack flipped through case files at the table. Lyle tried to read the newspaper, but the ink ran in the heat and rubbed off on his fingers. 

He gave up. “I’m going to have a bath,” he all but snarled. 

Jack grunted irritably. 

The water that ran from the faucet into the bathtub was tepid at best, but it was better than nothing. Lyle peeled the rest of his uniform off and sank into the water, thinking annoyed thoughts to himself. 

Eventually he rose, leaving his bad mood in the tub along with the dirt and sweat of the day. He didn’t bother drying off or dressing; the heat in the house made both actions redundant. He drained the tub and went into the bedroom. 

Jack was sprawled nude across the bed, which had been stripped back to just the top sheet. A pair of electric fans were set up on the bureau and pointed at the bed, and were running at full power. A bowl of ice chipped from the ice-box, and a tea towel, sat on Lyle’s nightstand. The other tea towel was already wrapped around a chunk of ice and resting on Jack’s chest. 

Lyle flopped down next to him, not close enough to touch, unfortunately. “Sorry I was in such a shit mood earlier.”

“No worries, mate. Same, really.”

Lyle snorted fondly. “You’re an ass, Jack,” he said, reaching for the ice. 

“Love you too, flyboy.”


	363. Surreal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I daren't stay long. I just had to see you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

It was a surreal experience, standing on the balcony of her bedroom in her parents’ townhouse in the middle of the night and watching a handsome man climb the trellis, hand over hand, to reach her. Like being a teenager again. Except that in Phryne’s youth there had been no balcony, and at that age she had been eager enough to go to the boys, rather than waiting for them to come to her.

Again, surreal.

She covered her mouth to muffle her gleeful laughter as Jack gained the last few feet and then swung himself lightly over the railing. “Not bad for an old man,” he whispered, his grin wide.

“That wouldn’t have been bad for an Olympic athlete,” Phryne murmured back, putting herself into his arms. “You weren’t supposed to call until tomorrow morning.”

Jack pressed his mouth to hers with an ardor that would have done credit to a more innocent man than he. “Oh,” he rumbled, “I couldn’t possibly wait that long.”


	364. Ungentlemanly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Well, I was in the AIF.” (Mr. Butler) Requested by Anonymous.

“How’d you come by all this kit, Mr. B?” Bert asked through a mouthful of sandwich, one afternoon when the lady of the house was out and about.

Tobias Butler looked up from the Mauser he had been lovingly cleaning. “Oh, in the AIF, you know.”

“Some of this stuff is from before the war, though,” Cec pointed out. “And some of it’s from after. And the AIF didn’t exist before the war. Jus’ how long were you in the army, Mr. B?”

Tobias smiled serenely, but there was a hint of cold steel behind it that people rarely got to see. “Long enough to know not to answer such a question. The stories behind it are far too... ungentlemanly.”


	365. Rappel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do.” (Terry Pratchett, _Carpe Jugulum_ ) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Dear Jack, 

I write to you from the depths of an obscenely luxuriant bathtub, within which I am cleansing myself of a month’s accumulated grime. My parents are well enough in themselves, though I won’t speak to their mental state. My mother is, I think, quite mad to be taking my father back. But what my mother wants in this life, I will move mountains to give her. It’s the least I can do.

God, how I wish you were here... in the bathtub or beside it, I’d take either one. I have far too many social obligations lined up for me to attend to, and I would vastly prefer to be dragged to them with you by my side. Do try to come to England soon, Jack. Mother wants to thank you in person, and I... well. My gratitude is of a decidedly private kind. 

I heard the most amazing story while I was traveling – I think while I was in Calcutta? Or perhaps when I was Vienna – something about a Melbourne detective-inspector actually having to rappel down the side of a building like a mountaineer in order to make an arrest. Can you imagine? How perfectly thrilling! And then it seems he had to chase his main suspect out of the building, crash through a plate glass window, and vault over several parked cars and a street cart in order to catch his man! It’s all far too exciting – quite a man after my own heart. I don’t suppose you happen to know this DI? It sounds to me as though he deserves a holiday after a collar like that... 

Hurry back to my arms, Jack. And do try not to have too many more adventures without me. 

Always, 

Phryne


	366. Blistering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not like that.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

It was a one-time thing, Jack assured himself. An experiment, a chance encounter to allow him to enjoy an intimate night with Phryne and her friend... her friends... 

Jack’s hands shook as he turned over the pages of the case file. It was a real pig of a murder, the kind that frustrated and disgusted him as a human being but that intrigued him as a lover of puzzles, a good juicy homicide. But he couldn’t concentrate. His mind kept going back to last night, to the feel of Sam Elsworth’s hands on his chest, Sam’s lips on his throat, Sam’s cock in his... 

“Christ,” Jack moaned, leaning back in his chair and splaying his hand across his face in dismay. He was supposed to dine at Wardlow tonight, and spend the night, and the Elsworths were staying with Phryne for... how long? He had no idea. But that meant that Sam would be there, Sam with his damned jawline and his undressing eyes and his blistering-hot grin, and Lilian, gorgeous slender soft lovely Lili was without a doubt an inducement, but oh... Sam... 

Jack slammed his chair forward and reached for the telephone receiver. “Wardlow,” he barked at the operator, and waited for the call to be put through. When he heard the click on the other end, he began speaking without waiting for an answer. “Tell Miss Fisher that I won’t be able to attend dinner tonight. Please give her my regrets and—” 

“Oh, now that is a disappointment,” drawled a warm, languid, distinctly masculine voice. “I was so looking forward to your company this evening, Jack.”

“Sam!” Jack gulped. “I’m sorry, I – work is getting to be tiresome and I don’t – I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away...”

“You sure? That’s a hell of a shame.”

He sounded genuinely regretful, and Jack was conscious of a strange and entirely unwelcome sensation, the feeling of discomfort at lying to a friend combined with the rapidly swelling erection trapped within his trousers. “I’ll... I’ll try to get away, Sam. I promise.”

“I hope it works out,” Sam said, and Jack could _hear_ his grin over the line. “I was kind of hoping to pick up where we left off the other night... if that’s to your liking?”

_It’s not to my liking. I’m not... not like..._ “I’d like that very much,” said Jack huskily.

“Excellent. See you at seven-thirty, then, Inspector.”

Jack hung up the receiver slowly and then reached for the decanter of whiskey. His mouth felt quite... dry.


	367. Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t lose you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

“That’s what I’m most afraid of, you know,” Jack murmured, running his palms lightly up and down Phryne’s arms. “To death, to adventure, to another man…”

Phryne’s smile was wry and a little too self-aware. “They’re all one in the same, you know.” 

“Death and the maiden?”

She snorted. “I rather think I missed that train. Some years ago.” She shifted on him, and both of them gasped as she took him a little deeper. “I mean, one has to meet them all the same way: as a challenge. As remembering that one is alive, has been alive, will continue to be alive.”

Jack rocked his hips gently, drawing a low, sweet moan from Phryne’s lips. “Am I not an adventure too? Or am I too familiar for that?”

“Oh, darling…” Phryne stretched herself out along his chest and laced her fingers behind his head. “You remind me that familiarity is an adventure all its own.”


	368. Nondescript

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How did you know?” (Mac/Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Mac stared, rather dumbfounded, at the bottle of old Glenfiddich Scotch that the nondescript brown paper wrapping had disclosed. “Rosie, this…” She looked up into the beaming face of her lady love. “No, I can’t. This is too much.”

“Too bad.” Rosie fetched a pair of tumblers from the cupboard and plunked them on the table. “There are very few things you’ll indulge yourself in, I’ve noticed, but fine whisky is absolutely one of them.”

“So is fine women,” Mac pointed out, her eyes crinkling fondly at their corners. “As you also may have noticed.”

“I have,” said Rosie dryly, “yes. But if you thought I was going to get you a woman for your birthday—” 

“You’d’ve had to look far and wide, to find one finer than yourself, lass,” Mac said admiringly. She broke the seal on the bottle and poured them both a measure of the beautiful tawny liquid. Mac held the tumbler beneath her nose and inhaled reverently. 

Rosie, who did not like straight whisky but who knew better than to adulterate something this good with soda water, sipped her portion carefully. Mac, on the other hand, swallowed hers in one go, with great relish and appreciation. “How’d you know it was my birthday?”

“I have my sources,” Rosie teased. 

“Phryne told you.” Rosie shook her head; Mac tried again. “…Jack?”

“Your mother, actually. We had tea last week.”

Mac gaped at Rosie. “You got round Mum? …A very fine woman, indeed,” she smiled, caressing Rosie with her eyes.


	369. Copper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Hey girl, how you doing?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by cowalyn.

Jack Robinson was not the sort of man to catcall at random women in the street. His police position made the act highly inappropriate to begin with, and his mother, more over, had taught him far, _far_ better manners than that. “If you’re man enough to whistle at a girl on the street,” she had scolded him at the age of fourteen, “you’re man enough to get on with some work and leave that poor lass alone.”

The tongue-lashing had stuck with Jack, with such force that if he heard a man holler at a woman in public, his hand reflexively went up to protect the back of his head from his mum’s incoming smack.

But there were some rare times when a piercing wolf whistle was the only response to a beautiful woman’s appearance on the sidewalk.

Phryne looked up in surprise and saw him leaning against his car, smirking at her. Her expression was somewhere between outrage and outright laughter. “G’day, copper,” she drawled, her voice pure Collingwood, “goin’ my way?”

“Could be, missus,” Jack replied, holding the door open for her.


	370. Cease and Desist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I think we’re being watched.” (Phryne/Lili) Requested by sheldonslog.

“Mmm... Lillian... Lili, darling... oh... those are some _lovely_ things you’re doing to my neck, but I’m afraid we might have to cease and desist.”

“Whatever for, Phryne?”

“Well, the crowd is starting to thin out – _oh_ , lower, sweet lady, lower – and we’re running the distinct – _do that again_ – possibility that our hostess might see us.”

“I doubt Lady Ferrars would know what she was looking at.”

“That’s true but – oh dear god touch my breast, _please_ – surely this could be better carried out in my – mmm – boudoir?”

“If we make it to your car, Phryne, my love, it will be a miracle.”

“True. Shall we at least try?”

“After you.”


	371. Shorthand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t think that’s what happened.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by phrynefisherismyrolemodel. 
> 
> TW: mention of suicide.

Phryne stood looking at the body under the sheet as though she half-expected the deceased to rise from the mortuary table and pronounce judgment on her.

Perhaps, Jack thought, she did.

“This is my fault,” she said softly.

“There was nothing you could have done.”

“I could have gotten to her faster. I could have – I _should_ have been more persuasive. She was nineteen, Jack.”

“I know.” He watched her stroke the girl’s forehead, smooth and still, through the sheet, and wondered if she was remembering herself at that age. The situations were strikingly similar: young, poor, alone in a strange country, involved with an abusive, possessive man who had used her for his own pleasures – and in Gladys’s case, gotten her pregnant and then abandoned her.

The body of Gladys’s so-called lover lay on another table not too far off, shot once through the forehead. Though she had been scared and angry, according to witnesses, the girl’s aim had been true. 

Phryne shook her head. “I should have—”

Jack interrupted her. “What could you have done, other than what you did? She listened to you, thank you, blessed you, even—”

“—and then jumped.” Phryne swallowed. “As though I wasn’t even there.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Phryne,” said Jack, very gently.

She hugged out a laugh with no humor to speak of. “When I came home in ‘twenty-eight, Mac warned me that I couldn’t save them all. At least she won’t lord this over me.” Phryne moved to the counter, slowly, as though all her muscles ached, and lifted a small crucifix on a chain from Gladys’s personal effects. “She was a Catholic, Jack. The church won’t allow a suicide to be buried in one of their cemeteries, let alone one who killed her lover and unborn child as well as herself. …Though I’m fairly certain that Father O’Leary is the sort of man who’d sooner overlook a murder than a suicide.”

“True.” 

Jack had no personal feelings about death at one’s own hand; after four years of war and twenty years on the force, most of them in homicide, he understood how it could feel like the only way out. But most people, he knew, saw it as a personal failing of the highest order. 

He circled the table slowly and came to stand beside Phryne. “Funny thing, though. The station stenographer made a bit of a gaffe when he was transcribing Collins’s shorthand notes. Put down ‘fell’ instead of ‘jumped’. I didn’t notice it until I had already made out my report. Dr. Macmillan pointed it out as she was filling out the death certificate.”

Phryne raised an eyebrow. “Is that translation error even possible?”

“No idea. I’ve worked hard to forget what little shorthand I once knew. But as of right now, there’s nothing in the official paperwork to indicate that Gladys Pietrzak died as a result of suicide.”

He waited. 

“In that case,” said Phryne, after a long moment in which she lowered the crucifix, on its chain, back into the bundle of Gladys’s water-stained clothing, “Dot and I can begin preparing for the funeral. If you’re absolutely sure it was recorded as accidental.”

“Completely,” said Jack, his eyes solemn and worried, but sincere.


	372. Debonair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Note how my lips and the sound issuing from them are synchronized together in perfect unison.” (Singing in the Rain) (Jack/Bert) Requested by meldanya44.

The premiere of _The Bride of Babylon_ was nothing if not interesting, and as star-studded as one could get in Melbourne. Phryne, of course, arrived on Raymond Hirsch’s arm, while his fiancée Clara arrived, as was only proper for a newly-minted leady lady, escorted by her new co-star, the debonair Jamie Allen.

Inspector Jack Robinson, invited for his help in clearing the studio’s name as well as for his strictly confidential vocal contributions, lurked contentedly in a corner, surveying the scene.

A good-looking blond in black tie sidled over to him, and it took Jack a minute or two to recognize the surprisingly (outwardly) elegant gentleman as one of Phryne’s cabbies. “Gate-crashing, Albert?” asked Jack mildly, sipping his champagne. “Where’d you get the suit?”

“Invited, same as you. Cec an’ me were extras, after all. And it was a present from Mrs. Stanley.”

Oh yes. Jack had occasion to remember both that night and the suit. “What did you think of the film?”

“Oh, it’s a rippin’ good yarn, an’ Allen’s a damn good actor, even if he does still owe me a week’s worth’a tips for drivin’ him all over creation.” Bert knocked back his champagne like a shot, dropped the glass onto the tray of a passing waiter, and liberated another. “Got a helluva shock during the talkin’ bits, though. Didn’t expect to hear _your_ voice coming outta _my_ mouth.”

“No,” Jack agreed, grinning. 

“Dunno why. Hirsch could’a just as well asked me t’ give meself my own voice.”

“I think you just answered your own question, Albert. You do sound a bit cant for ancient Babylon.”

“So what, I oughta sound like you? You gonna pretend t’ be Professor Henry Bleedin’ Higgins an’ teach me t’ talk all propah?”

Jack drank off his champagne and turned as though to walk away, bumping his shoulder to Bert’s as he did so. “Come home with me tonight, Albert,” he murmured, before he moved off, “and I’ll teach you to _sing_.”

Bert blinked at Jack’s back as he disappeared into the crowd… and then he grinned. “Too right, Professor.”


	373. Regret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Move away from the door and let me at him.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Jack caught her by the arm. “No.”

“Just give me five minutes alone with him—”

“You know I can’t let you do that.”

“You damned well can after what that monster—”

“Phryne,” said Jack gently, “ _no_.”

*** 

“Step away from the door, Miss Fisher.”

“Not on your life.”

“ _Move._ Or I will make this official.”

“Make it whatever you like. I know that look, Jack.”

“Damn it, Phryne, don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”

“That’s why I’m not moving.”

*** 

The two partners stared at the closed door. “If we go in there...”

“We both know what will happen.” 

“We’ll never be able to undo it.”

“Nothing will ever been the same again.”

“Together, then?”

“Always.”


	374. Arrested

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I got you this gift but I’m shy about giving it to you.” (Jack & Jane) Requested by sheldonslog.

It was the first birthday Jane has spent with Miss Phryne, and it had been lovely. A party and a dance in her honor, friends from both her school and the boys’ school across the street, all her favorite foods, lots of presents... and afterward, quiet time in the parlour by herself with one of her new books. 

“You don’t seem to be enjoying that very much,” rumbled a quiet, amused voice from the parlour doorway. 

Jane looked up and smiled at Inspector Robinson. “I am, I just can’t seem to concentrate. It’s been an exciting day.”

“It has,” Jack agreed. “Miss Fisher told me all of the highlights.”

“Um... everything?”

“Well, not _everything_ , I don’t think.” Jack took a seat in one of the club chairs, his blue eyes twinkling. “It sounded like there was an... incident with one of the boys from Melrose Grammar? Something about a wisteria-covered arbor...?”

Jane blushed very red, but she couldn’t help grinning. “He’s a nice boy.”

“I’m sure he is.” Jack’s hand dipped into his jacket pocket. “Janey, ah... I’m sorry I couldn’t come.”

She shrugged and brushed her heavy braid over her shoulder. “It’s all right. You were busy.” She’d been disappointed, and surprised at her own disappointment, and finally strangely relieved to not have to explain who he was to her school friends. ‘The man who almost arrested me and is now almost my uncle’ was odd enough to think to herself, let alone say aloud. 

“I was. Still.” Jack hesitated. “I have something for you. It’s not much, and if you’d rather I didn’t give you anything, I’ll understand, of course...”

Jane closed her book, got up, went over to Jack’s chair, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for coming, Uncle Jack.”


	375. Iota

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You say tomato…” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

“You slept with him.”

“Well... yes, in a manner of speaking. We did share a bed for a night.”

“This is hardly a question of semantics, Miss Fisher,” said Jack, with surprising mildness, given the situation. “You slept with a suspect, again, and neglected to tell me.”

“‘I cannot see how sleeping should offend,’” she retorted, “and I dislike your implication.” Phryne leveled her most well-bred stare at her detective-inspector. The fact that she was not in the least well-bred, and that both of them knew it, did not make an iota of difference. “I hardly felt I needed to inform you that the gentleman in question and I were forced to make the best of a bad situation one night, five years ago in Aleppo.”

“Your habit of possessing personal connections to my most interesting suspects is beginning to be just the tiniest bit tiresome...”

“I do not have a _personal_ connection with him. I told you: we were two foreigners in Aleppo, I needed a room, he offered to pretend I was his wife and pay for a single room for us to share. We were tired and the room was tiny, so we both shared the bed. It was as much precaution as convenience; some places simply aren’t safe for a single woman alone.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Not even for one as formidable as you?”

Phryne took the thin offer of an olive branch. “There are some risks even I prefer not to take,” she replied, rather dryly.


	376. Dirty Pool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You cannot ‘serve time’ for self-inflicted sentences.” (Bert/Angela Lombard) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.
> 
> Yes, Bert/Angela. Go read [The Bombshell and The Ragger](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6226756/chapters/14266678). Just do it.

“Rise an’ shine, hot stuff. Time to get moving, we need to be at this shin-dig at nine o’clock on the nose.” 

Bert grumbled and rolled over in bed and then yelped when a cold wet facecloth was slapped against his back. “ _Jesus!_ Awright, awright, I’m up...” He flung the cloth back at Angela and, reluctantly, sat up. “Holy hell, woman! That is some dirty pool!”

His wife smirked at him and pushed a lock of fiery red hair out of her eyes. “Bert, honey, when have you _ever_ known me to play fair?” She bent down to kiss him good morning, which Bert really couldn’t object to, since it put her gorgeous breasts practically right into his hands. “Mmm... none of that this morning, handsome. We can’t keep Mrs. S. waiting.”

He grumbled some more but finally swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Why do I hafta go to this bloody garden party? Ev’ryone’s jus’ gonna mistake me for the hired help again... Can’t you go by yerself, Ang?” 

“I _could_ ,” Angela agreed, propping a toned leg on the bed and rolling on her sheer stockings (much to Bert’s admiration), “but then everyone and their mother is going to ask me, ‘Oh dear, wherever is your husband?’ And you really don’t want to leave me alone to tell them the stories I’ll tell ‘em.”

“Aw, God,” Bert moaned, getting up in a huff and hunting for his Sunday clothes, “what’ve I gotten myself into with you?”

Angela turned and caught him with a fond arm around the neck, and pulled him in for a kiss. “The best damned thing in your life, Bert Johnson, that’s what.”


	377. Poses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it.” (D.H. Lawrence) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Jack rolled his lips tightly over the album that Phryne presented him, a ‘liberated’ piece of evidence from their recent case that she was reluctantly returning. The photographs within were not of her – thank God – but of nameless women and men in a variety of -- _ahem_ – poses. “I can’t even begin to count all the different ways in which this collection is illegal,” he commented, with what he felt was admirable mildness.

“Such a shame, don’t you think? Those particular indecency laws. In the art world, these would be seen for the beautiful images that they are.”

“The world of art, Miss Fisher, is clearly a planet I have no wish to visit.” 

Her gray-green eyes contemplated him with an expression that made him uncomfortable… and curiously excited. “Don’t tell me you don’t find the act of lovemaking beautiful, Jack.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Even if I’ve never seen that act expression in _quite_ this infinite variety of ways.” Jack turned a page, raised an eyebrow, and then shut the book firmly. “But the law doesn’t take personal opinion or preference into account.”

“No,” Phryne sighed, “it doesn’t. Well, take it away, then, Inspector, if you must.” She gave him an imperious little wave of dismissal. It was such a lofty gesture that Jack actually felt small. “The owner’s dead, and I’m sure she’d prefer the album to be incinerated than have it brought up in court and then kept in an evidence file for pimply young constables to gawk over.”

“I’m sure,” Jack agreed gravely, standing up and tucking the album safely under his arm. “Good night, Miss Fisher.”

“Good night, Inspector Robinson.”

His hand was on the doorknob when she called out, “Jack?”

“Yes?”

“What are you _really_ going to do with that album?”

Jack’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes danced. “Return them to the photographer.”

“There’s no name on the prints.”

“No, but the style is… quite distinctive.”

Phryne laughed and reclined regally back on her chaise lounge. “Give my regards to Emily,” she smiled. 

Jack inclined his head, flushing under his collar with absurd pride at having restored her faith in him. “Of course,” he replied. “She still wants you to pose for her, you know.”

“Oh,” Phryne purred, “I know. But my answer is the same, Jack: only if you pose with me.”


	378. Knock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Better to die voluntarily crashing than to have the enemy send you down in flames.” (Billy Bishop) (Jack/Lyle) Requested by meldanya44.

Lyle tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. He made himself knock on the door and wait, counted silently – _One... two... three... four..._ If there was no answer by five, he would turn and walk away as quickly as his boots would carry him. He’d go back to the airfield, back to his office, back to his bunk, and forget he’d ever been on this doorstep.

At the count of five, the door opened, and Lyle found himself looking into the face of Jack Robinson, who appeared entirely unsurprised, and very glad, to see him. “Group Captain,” Jack said, all warm eyes and quiet smiles.

“I... Phryne—that is, Miss Fisher... gave me your address. I wanted to...” Lyle trailed off and stared at Jack dumbly, too scared to put words to what he wanted.

After a moment or two of this, Jack took Lyle by the arm and gently drew him into the foyer. He closed the door and then, just as gently, brought a hand to Lyle’s face. “If you want this, Compton,” he murmured, his thumb a breath away from Lyle’s lips, “you can have it. No catches, no questions. You just have to say the word.”


	379. Thin Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not drunk, I’m merely...enthusiastic.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“You,” said Jack fondly, watching Phryne spin around the parlour in her bare feet, “are drunk.”

“I am not! I’m happy! Effervescent, on cloud nine, tripping the light fantastic—”

“Three sheets to the wind, sozzled, completely soused—”

“Walking on air, darling!” 

“Skating on thin ice,” Jack corrected, reaching out a hand to steady her when her joyous twirling caused her to bump hard against the back of a chair.

“Ow...” Phryne dropped to the floor, clutching her hip. “Oh, that’s going to leave a bruise...”

“As tipsy and limp as you are? I doubt it.”

He hauled her to her feet and proved his own words to be prophetic, for she promptly went limp in his arms. “To my boudoir!”

“As you command, my lady,” replied Jack solemnly, planning to tuck her up with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin.


	380. Strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I dread the sound of his key in the lock.” (Women of MFMM) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> Possibly over-cautious TW for abusive relationships.

_He’ll be home any minute now,_ Margaret Fisher told herself, for the hundredth time, as she lay sick in bed in the family’s cheap rented flat in Collingwood. It was a far cry from the stately home of her girlhood, that she had given up for love and rosy promises. She still loved Henry… but she had long since learned that his promises didn’t count for much.

It was her second miscarriage in two years. This time it had been a boy. Henry hadn’t been home in four days. Phryne, her little nymph-eyed daughter, only seven and far too streetwise, said that Father was still at the pub. Five-year-old Jane was doing her best to keep the flat tidy while her mother was bedridden. She looked after Margaret while Phryne was in school. At night, Phryne kept her warm and gave Margaret her medicine, while Janey cuddled up beside her to sleep.

And the three of them waited, hopeful but tense, for Henry to come home.

 

* * *

 

Never again, Phryne Fisher vowed, her hands shaking as she ransacked the rooms she shared with Rene, looking for everything that was hers, wanting nothing to remind her of him. She wanted nothing more from Rene, save her freedom.

He had used her once too often, hit her, belittled her, claimed her as his property one too many times, until finally the face looking out at Phryne from the mirror was the face of a stranger.

Pierre and Veronique understood – they were good people, ashamed of their friend’s behavior – but they could do little to help her. But Mac was in Paris – dear, acerbic, practical Mac. She had booked passage for them both back to England, back to the estate, back to Father and—

Phryne choked back a sob. To her surprise, she wanted her mother.

 

* * *

 

It was like living with a ghost, Rosie thought, sipping her tea and staring into the depths of the fireplace. It was two o’clock in the morning and the fire had long since gone out, but Jack wasn’t in bed and she couldn’t sleep. She wondered if he had come home yet. He could have, without her hearing. He had taken to slipping in and out of the house at the oddest times, and so quietly.

Any other man she would have suspected of keeping a mistress. That would almost have been easier to bear. At least Rosie would have had someone concrete to blame. But there was nothing but work. Jack walked back and forth to the station. He disliked being closed inside the car.

She couldn’t hold her eyes open anymore, so she went back to bed. Jack still wasn’t there.

 

* * *

 

The safest place, Concetta realized early on, was the kitchen. There were always people in the kitchen at Strano’s, even long after the restaurant was closed. Bread had to be baked early in the morning, dishes and tables and stovetops and floors had to be scrubbed late into the night. And no one would fault a hardworking woman. She was a credit to her grandfather, a credit to her husband…

And she worked hard, so as to see them as little as possible, and to never be alone with either of them, if she could help it.

The priest, he was no help at all, though he was better than the old one. The police had taken Father Grogan away. Something to do with an altar boy. The new one, O’Leary, was older, kinder, but still of the same mind: submit to the will of God and to the will of your husband, or escape to the cloister. But Concetta had no taste for the nunnery. Her vocation was to be a wife. But to such a man as she had?

She sinned deeply when her husband died, and cried false tears for him, but she made no confession.

The next candle she lit in church was for her husband’s murderer.


	381. Barbed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes  
> They’ve seen things that you never quite say, but I hear  
> Come out of hiding, I’m right here beside you  
> And I’ll stay there as long as you let me  
> (“You Matter to Me” by Sara Barailles) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

It didn’t happen often, at least not when they were in company together. How he dealt with it when he was alone, Phryne didn’t know, but when he was sitting in her parlour, and the mood overtook him, she recognized it all too well.

She still had those moods sometimes. 

Their individual experiences were naturally different. She had not seen combat the way Jack had. She’d shot a few men during her time as a nurse and ambulance driver (two in self-defense, one out of pity), but Phryne’s concerns had largely been with the aftermath of combat.

Jack never spoke of what he’d done in the war. He insisted it was classified. He might even have been telling her the truth.

Classified or no, even ten years and more on, when the dark moods overtook him, there was no escape, no possible distraction that would bring him back from the memories of France, of blood and mud and bodies hanging on the barbed wire of No Man’s Land.

All Phryne could do was curl up quietly beside him, carefully, so that he would feel his personal space being shared rather than invaded, and wait for him to find his way back to her.


	382. Knack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I could kiss you for hours.” “Four, five hours… whatever it takes.” (Phryne/Bert/Jack) Requested by ladygrayluvs.
> 
> Inspired by [this post](https://www.instagram.com/p/BAmzijXMdVj/).

Bert laughed and playfully tried to extricate himself from the depths of the bed. He didn’t really _want_ to go, of course, and the people sharing his bed with him knew it. “How long’ve we been here?” he asked, letting Phryne and Jack pull him back down to the mattress. “Pretty sure I should’a got back on the road hours ago.”

“It’s barely been a half-hour,” Phryne protested, glancing at Jack’s wristwatch. “And we have the whole night ahead of us.”

“A half-hour of you two doin’ nothin’ but kiss me senseless.”

“Must be those bloody cheap cigarettes and all that illegal grog.” Jack teased. He turned Bert’s face and silenced him with a long, deep, appreciative open-mouth kiss. “I guess that somehow makes you taste good.”

“Thanks fer nothin’, Robinson,” Bert grumbled, curling his fingers into Jack’s hair. “An’ shouldn’t you two be out detectin’ or… mmm, Miss…”

Phryne always did have a knack for shutting men up.


	383. Lunatic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We classy ladies don’t have one-night stands. We have auditions, and not everyone gets a callback.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by gertrudejinlges.

There was nothing in the vast majority of men to recommend them to a woman of Phryne Fisher's sort. Her experience of men ranged over six separate continents, so she considered herself far more qualified to speak upon the subject of men than then good Dr. Watson had ever been to speak upon women. And the conclusion she had formed was that men were fun, but unreliable, capricious, and altogether dangerous to her sanity – a conclusion, incidentally, that more than one disgruntled suitor had made about her.

Of course, those suitors hadn't been _wrong_ about her in the slightest. In Phryne's personal opinion, that was what made her such an exhilarating companion, albeit briefly. There was a particular strain of madness required to couple up with her, and an even rarer sort needed to want to remain in partnership.

So when Jack Robinson stepped off the boat in Dover, and grinned at her as she had never seen him grin before, Phryne could only conclude that her favorite detective-inspector was a confirmed lunatic.

And nothing could have pleased her more.


	384. Missus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is as far as it goes.” (Rosie/Bert) Requested by meldanya44.
> 
> As per usual: if this ain't your plate of carrots, there are plenty of other crunchies here and elsewhere. :)

"This is my house," Rosie said to the cab driver, a taciturn blond man with a hand-rolled cigarette seemingly permanently fastened to his lower lip.

To her surprise, he chuckled. "Yeah, I know it is, luv. Been droppin' you off here every other Saturday night for the past six months."

Rosie blushed. She had been taking far too many taxis lately, but there was no other option. It was difficult enough to manage to pay for all of the cab rides, let alone try to pay for a car of her own. Jack was a generous man and provided her with an allowance despite their separation and the unlikelihood of their reconciliation, but she needed that money to pay the rent on her little flat. It would have been so much easier to move in with her sister, but she couldn't face that possibility just yet... "What's the fare?"

"Two an' six, luv, same as always."

Rosie opened her purse... and to her horror, found only one shilling left. "Oh, I... I'm so sorry, I'm afraid I haven't got enough."

The cabbie turned round and looked at her over the front seat. Under the brim of his hat, Rosie could see for the first time that his eyes were very, very blue. "Have ya got anythin'?" he asked, flicking his gaze over her clothes. They were quiet, undeniably of good quality, but hardly expensive, and though she wouldn't expect him to notice, eighteen months out of style.

A hot rush of shame boiled up the back of her neck, and on impulse, Rosie plunged her hand into her purse and pulled out the shilling note. "Here," she said shortly, holding the money out to him. "Come back in a week and you'll get the balance plus interest."

He raised his eyebrows at her, and then slowly removed the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it out the open window. "What's yer name, missus?"

"Rosie Robinson," she replied, trying not to wince. She was already waiting for the day when she could reclaim her maiden name. Jack's surname just didn't fit, anymore. "Why?"

"Fer the credit book." The cabbie reached under the seat and pulled out a small paper-backed account ledger, and fished a stub of pencil from his pocket. He wrote her name and the amount she owed (one shilling and sixpence), and then tipped his hat to her. "No need t' hurry on my account. I'll be 'round Saturday after next, same as always."

Rosie looked at him for a moment. "May I ask what your name is?"

"Albert Johnson. Ev'ryone calls me Bert."

She held out her hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Bert. You're a true gentleman."

Bert shook her hand but snorted at the compliment. "Nah, just bein' decent t' someone who deserves it." She exited the cab and he touched his hat brim to her again. "G'day, missus."

*** 

There was a place near the foreshore, hidden, out of sight of the beach but within earshot of the waves, where he would park the car in the late evenings. In the three months since putting her name in his books, Rosie had come to know the spot, and Bert, very well, enough by now that she couldn't remember how it had started. 

"This is it," she had warned him, the first time he kissed her. "This is all I can give you. I'm a married woman..." But the rest of her feeble, rote protestations were long since lost in the memories of his lips on her mouth, her cheeks, her throat, the feeling of his rough hands, gentle in her hair, reverent in their explorations under her blouse. 

"Yes," she had gasped, the night Bert laid his hand on her thigh, beneath her skirt, with a question in his eyes, "but no farther." He had promised, and then taken her apart, muffling her mouth with his to hide her guttural cries of pleasure. _No farther,_ she'd told herself firmly that same night, after returning the favour.

The night she found the box of condoms in the glove box, she realized just how far she was willing to go. They used half the box in the cab, in the spot by the foreshore, then Rosie brought him back to her flat and they used the rest. 

"You'll... you'll keep this to yourself?"

"Don't worry, missus," Bert murmured sleepily, his head pillowed on her breasts, "won't go any farther'n me."


	385. Unaccountable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “His native home deep imag’d in his soul.” (Homer) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> Takes place before [Chapter 356](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/15854911).

"Jack." Her fingers were buried in his thick hair, working slowly, massaging his scalp. It had a curious texture, his hair. His skin, his tongue, his emissions... everything about him had a curious, not-unpleasant, unaccountable texture. "What you said earlier. About Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and Edgar Burroughs... about you being something... other... than what I am. All of that."

"Yes."

"...Did you mean it?"

He let out a long, almost silent breath. "Every word."

The implications were staggering, and - if it was true and not merely the product of a tired, overworked mind – quite literally earth-shaking.

He might well be telling tales. But she knew him now. She knew Jack Robinson's mind, and some of his heart, and now a great deal of his body. He was not a tale-teller. And to someone like Phryne, with so much first-hand experience of male anatomy, there was something extraordinary – inhuman – about his body.

"Where did you come from?" she whispered. It seemed like the most innocuous question possible, and the only she could articulate at that moment.

Jack laughed softly, without humor. "The police barracks. Richmond. A children's home. The bush. And before that... can I try to show you?"

Phryne nodded. She watched his rise from the bed where he had made love with her for hours (literally, she realized, looking at the clock on her nightstand) and pull on his trousers. He buttoned them over his now-flaccid cock (she had been worried for a little while) but left the braces hanging at his hips, and then turned off the table lamp. He drew back the curtains of her front window and raised the sash. "Out here."

She wrapped herself in a blanket and followed him out into the widow's walk.

Jack put his arm lightly about her shoulders and then pointed to one star among thousands, in the sky over Melbourne. "That one, as near as I can make out, is where I was before I was here."

It was incredible enough to be a dream, but Phryne rarely felt as safe in her subconscious as she did with Jack. She put her arms around his waist and rested her head against the side of his chest. "Why?" she asked. "Why did you come here?"

Again the long silent sigh. "I wish to God I knew," said Jack quietly.


	386. Judgments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Well, I am just a little bit, um, terrified.” (Hugh) Requested by Anonymous.

“Sir, I-I’d like to request a raise.”

Jack looked at his best officer in poorly-disguised amazement. “A _raise_ , Senior Constable Collins?”

Hugh stood up ramrod straight in front of Jack’s desk, his hands folded respectfully behind his back and every button on his coat shined to a mirror finish. He’d come a long way from the wet-behind-the-ears kid who’d been handed to Jack fresh out of the Academy. He looked a little white and petrified at asking his boss for a raise in pay, but Jack couldn’t blame him for that; it was a nerve-wracking experience. “Yes, sir. We’re… that is, I’m… in need of extra funds.”

Jack slowly capped his fountain pen and laid it down, then folded his hands on his blotter. “Is Mrs. Collins expecting again already?” he inquired, privately steeling himself to instruct Hugh in the proper use of a condom, if that was the case. 

But Hugh surprised him. “Not, it’s not Dottie, sir, it’s… it’s my sister Becky. You see, she… got herself into trouble, a few years back, and my mother threw her out.”

“I’m sensing a pattern here.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Hugh, with a quick wry smile that made him seem much older. “And the rest of my siblings feel the same way my mother does, so ever since then, I’ve been helping Becky get by, well, as much as I can. She went out to work after the baby was born, but sometimes, she – she’s not strong, sir, and five shillings here and there doesn’t go very far.”

“I see. So you’re helping to support your sister and her child, as well as supporting your own wife and child. And your mother, on occasion, I believe.”

“Er, yes, sir.”

“Well, this goes some way towards explaining why you were so chronically short of cash in the days when you and Dot were courting,” Jack said, his voice going husky with amusement, thinking of the yellowing little IOU book in the back of his desk. He’d never asked Hugh to repay the money; a few bob a week from his own pay packet, and he’d never once missed them. “And here I always wondered if you were hiding gambling debts.” Hugh flushed a bit at that. “Does Dot know?”

“About… me borrowing money?”

“And you financially assisting your sister.”

“Oh. She, um… she knows about Becky, but… not about the money. Or about my niece. She just thinks I’m bad at managing my allowance.”

Jack shook his head. “You can’t keep this from your wife forever. Moreover, _I_ can’t keep this from your wife, period. And awful things happen when Dot finds out something from me that she should have heard from you.” 

Hugh looked at the floor. It took him a full minute for him to say what was on his mind. “Sir, Dottie’s a wonderful person, and I couldn’t dream of a better wife or a better friend, but she can be… very quick to judge. If she knew about the money, or the baby… well, my sister’s been through enough. She doesn’t need Dottie’s judgments, too. But she does need my help.”

“Collins, with all due respect – and I mean that sincerely – I don’t think you’re giving your wife nearly enough credit. Mrs. Collins is one of the most sincere Christians I have ever met, and she seems to take the ideas of forgiveness and charity very seriously. Do you really think she’ll… what? Insult your sister? Refuse to see her child? Insist you break off all contact with Becky?”

“My mother did,” Hugh replied bluntly. “And yes, Dottie’s completely different from my mother, but she’s also very like _her_ mother. Look at her and Lola—er, Nell!”

“Lola is a professional courtesan. What does Becky do?”

“She’s a cook’s helper in a rich house.”

“Highly respectable and nothing for Dot to be offended by.”

“Yes, but—” 

“Hugh.” Jack’s voice was firm but gentle, almost fatherly. “As someone with personal experience in this sort of thing… tell your wife the truth. She’s a good woman, she’ll understand you wanting to help your sister. She might even be eager to help Becky herself.”

Hugh unbent, just a little. “I just… I don’t want to make things worse.”

“Then stop hiding this from Dottie. Tell her this evening, and I’ll put in the paperwork for your raise first thing in the morning.” Hugh’s grin was big and white and almost blinding. “It might take a while to go through,” Jack warned. “Bureaucracy being what it is.”

“You got them to put my promotion through in three days.”

“Procedural blackmail is a thing to be wielded with caution, Collins. If I threaten to resign too often, Russell Street might just take me up on it.”

“Yes, sir.” Hugh’s smile was undimmed. “Sir, I… thank you, sir.”


	387. Munitions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It looks like you’re in trouble there. Can I help?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23 & omgimsarahtoo.

“Jack, could you help me with this last button, please?”

“Of course. …This must be in a terribly awkward spot for you, just now.”

“Ugh, every button seems to be in an awkward spot, just now.”

“A sprained wrist will do that. I told you to use two hands when pulling the trigger. Perhaps next time you’ll do me the honour of listening to me? Or perhaps listening to your munitions expert?”

“I shall never live down Mr. Butler’s entirely polite and discreet expression of professional disappointment. But I didn’t think the kick would be quite that hard – oh, Jack? Sorry, could you also unhook my brassiere?”

“How silly of me. Naturally you can’t do this by yourself… or this…”

“Mmm… well, I could do _that_ , but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun as letting you do it.”

“Happy to help, Miss Fisher, as always.”


	388. Exotic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Do you have anything else?” (Bert/Cec) For phrynefisherismyrolemodel.

“That was…” Cec trailed off, searching for words. 

Bert tried to help. “Good?”

“Yeah, good… really good… bloody wonderful, mate,” Cec murmured, his voice sleepy with exertion and wonder. He laughed a little. “Never thought it’d be that good.”

Bert rested his forehead on Cec’s chest, gasping quietly. The scents of the room, of dust and cheap French wine, mingled with the smells of their perspiration and their cum, the one familiar, the other exotic and exciting and new. Bert could taste Cec’s sweat on his lip, Cec’s lips on his tongue, and the weighty memory of Cec’s cock in his throat.

He throbbed inside Cec at the thought, and drank in Cec’s moans. The mingled with the sounds from outside, of celebration in the Parisian streets. The war was over, and they would be going home soon… 

Bert wasn’t ready to think about home, not yet. “More?”

“God, yes.” Cec raised a hand to Bert’s sweat-damp hair and carded his fingers through it; Bert shivered. “As much as you’ve got, mate, I want.”


	389. Retrospect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There are only so many hours in a day.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.
> 
> Angst Level: High. ...Look, it was a request, okay?

In retrospect, Phryne thought, she should have known. She _felt_ like she ought to have seen the signs which, looking back, had started to manifest even before her departure for England. Jack was an old soldier and a twenty-year veteran of the police force. A few whiskey cocktails and a sherry glass of nerve tonic shouldn't have affected him that easily. And she blamed herself for not catching it sooner. 

There was nothing that could have been done at the time, of course. Just like there was nothing to be done now.

"Did you know then?" she asked, as he lay asleep in his hospital bed, swathed in white, his olive face turned a sickly yellow with jaundice. "Is that what you kept trying to tell me, before I left?"

She didn't whisper. There was no point now; she had been there for hours before he had dropped off to sleep, and hours after, sitting, waiting. He was too far gone to hear her, Mac had said. He wasn't likely to wake again.

Phryne thought he must have known. He had told her, it felt like a hundred years ago, that his father had died from liver failure. A hundred years ago that she had left him, and he had followed, and swept her into his arms on a dance floor and never looked back. Only a few hours since the first time, and the last time, they had made love. Only a moment since he had come home from his doctor’s office, and kissed her, and told her it wouldn’t be long. 

It felt like forever. 

She reached for his hand, lying limp on the bed. 

It wouldn’t be long now.


	390. Ravenous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography.” (Robert Byrne) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“This is the oddest thing you’ve ever had me do in bed,” Jack laughed, standing up on his knees and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Phryne laughed throatily. “Are you complaining, darling?”

“Oh no, not in the least.” 

“Good. Because I was about to say, you seemed rather ravenous, a few minutes ago.” She trailed her fingers through the chocolate sauce still left on her belly. There was some on the insides of her thighs as well. “Also, you missed a spot.”

Jack’s grin was almost predatory, and he most definitely growled as he proceeded to clean up the rest of the mess that Phryne had made for his benefit.


	391. Craggy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry I can’t ravish you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

As he laid her in her bed, Phryne clung for one second more to Jack Robinson’s neck. “Stay,” she whispered, kissing his cheek. “Stay… please?”

“Sleep,” Jack murmured, untangling her arms and smoothing her wild black hair. “I’ll be here.”

She dropped off while he was undressing, and didn’t feel him climb into bed with her. Unconscious as she was, though, she responded readily, turning and curling into his embrace and hanging on for dear life. 

Her dreams were mild that night, gentle and soothing as they had not been in a very long time. When she awoke, feeling strangely refreshed, in the early hours of the morning when the light was soft and colourless and just enough to see by, she opened her eyes and saw Jack watching her. 

“I’ve often dreamed of having you in my bed,” he said quietly, by way of greeting, his voice still a little craggy from sleep. “This isn’t quite what I was picturing, but…” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “I like it.”

Phryne’s smile was slow, sleepy, and delighted. “I’m very glad. I’m only sorry I fell asleep so quickly. I had plans to ravish you.”

Jack chuckled, and his eyes twinkled rather knowingly. He kissed her again, on her lips this time, so tenderly, cradling her jaw in his palm. “Time enough for that later.”

“Yes,” Phryne agreed, cuddling closer against him.


	392. Momentum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve never done this before.” (Phryne/Jack/Rosie) Requested by meldanya44.

Rosie clenched her inner muscles around Jack’s cock and watched the sensation – all of the sensations – play out over Jack’s face. “Oh my god,” he gasped, his voice a sort of whispering moan, and then dropped his head to her shoulder and let out a high, strangled groan. 

“All right, love?” Phryne asked, stroking one hand up his back, as the other slowly guided the dildo into his slick hole. He had been carefully prepared for this first experience, Rosie knew (she had watched, out of protective feelings as much as out of curiosity), but he was shaking all over. “Painful?”

“Strange,” Jack said hoarsely. “More.”

Phryne pushed forward another inch, and Jack keened and kissed Rosie hungrily. “Good, Jack?” she asked, tangling her fingers in his thick hair and tugging gently. “Do you like her inside you?”

His eyes were glassy and faraway and hot on her skin. “I like all of this… ohhh God.” Phryne, seated completely inside him, her stomach against his ass and her hands wrapped around his hips, was fucking him gently now. He let out a loud exhalation and then let his legs slide down, so that Phryne’s forward momentum pushed Jack’s cock deeper inside Rosie. “God yes Phryne yes… yes, Rosie…” Soon he couldn’t even manage their names, and finally, with a loud wordless shout, he came around Phryne’s cock. 

He wrapped his arms around Rosie and lost himself, and the final sharp push and the sensation of him spending inside her sent Rosie over as well. She shuddered under Jack and stroked his hair. “Oh my God,” he whispered, shaking. “Oh my God…”

Rosie kissed his cheek softly. “Good, darling? Are you all right?”

Jack didn’t answer, just kissed the side of her neck. He reached back and found Phryne’s hand and squeezed it tightly.


	393. Anticipation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “So where exactly is that supposed to go?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by jasbo.

Jack lay back against the luxuriant pillows of Phryne Fisher's bed, trying to catch his breath as best he could, while Phryne knelt between his legs and smirked at him with her reddened, swollen lips. "There, how was that for a starter?"

"Christ," Jack gasped. "Jesus... fucking... that mouth should be illegal. I'm certain the things you just did with your tongue _are_ illegal."

Phryne's grin widened. "One filthy mouth deserves another, you know," she purred, stretched out atop him and kissing him deeply, letting him taste himself lingering in her especially filthy mouth. "After the things you did to me..."

"Fair point. Although I don't know if I'll be any good to you for the rest of the evening." Jack looked down at his cock, which was unused to oral pleasure and so had spent itself rather dramatically, thanks to Phryne's talented ministrations. He shrugged and then buried his face in her throat. "I'm not at all complaining, mind you," he rumbled, nipping and teasing the delicate skin there, "but I do so wish I could have been inside you tonight."

"Mmm... oh, you still can, darling. In fact, I'm counting on it."

"I'm flattered, but I don't have the endless stamina of your beautiful young men. Even if you can get me hard again, which I don't doubt at all..." Jack nonchalantly took one of her hands and placed it firmly on his groin. "I think I've rather spent my load for the evening."

Phryne laughed softly. "My beautiful young men may have stamina, but they certainly don't have your staying power. Or your hands... but I've got something that we both might enjoy." She caught his lips in several quick, teasing kisses, and then removed herself from his arms and went to her bureau. "One does pick up such interesting little toys, in one's travels."

"Yes," Jack said, rolling his eyes a bit as he sat up, "so you've shown me. So what is it tonight, eh? Another carved ivory phallus from India? Or the jade balls again?"

"Jade, yes, benwa balls, no." She retrieved a small chamois drawstring bag and then resumed her place on the bed. "Those toys are marvelous but somewhat one-sided. This, on the other hand..."

Jack untied the string and tipped the contents of the bag into his hand. It was a ring of carved jade, perhaps an inch and a half or so in diameter, fashioned to look like a curled dragon, complete with an intricately detailed dragon's head stretching out at right angles from the ring. "It's beautiful," he said, turning it over and over in his sensitive fingers. 

Phryne licked her lips. 

"And just where does it go?" Jack asked, sensing the obvious answer but wanting to give her the satisfaction of teasing him. 

"Where do you think?"

"Oh, I'm not sure I can do an adequate job of thinking, right now." He leaned in close to her and flicked his tongue over her lips as well. "Will you put it on me?"

Phryne let out a low growl of anticipation and pushed him back on the bed. Jack spread his legs for her and she took up her place again, between his thighs. She bent over him, holding his eyes with her emerald ones, and slipped the ring over his cockhead, tonguing him as she pushed it slowly down his shaft until it rested around the base. "Now," she said, with a hungry look that made Jack groan, "let's see if I can't get you up for one more round, at least."


	394. Payoff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What’s the magic word?” (Mac/Rosie) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

Rosie's eyes gleamed as she watched Mac buckle the leather straps around her hips. "I love this," she murmured, unable to keep an eager tremor out of her voice. 

"What, me getting into this contraption? Or what I do with it?"

"All of it. The anticipation. The build-up." Rosie laughed and bit her lower lip. "The payoff." 

Mac fastened the last buckle and adjusted the rubber phallus that now hung stiffly against her sex, and then rested one knee on the bed so that her upper body hovered over Rosie's face and torso. "You like it when I fuck you with my cock," she declared, and then moaned when Rosie's hands and mouth found her breasts. 

"Oh God, Beth, darling, I do, I do..." Rosie pulled one of Mac's nipples into her mouth and sucked hard, rolling the other gently between her finger and thumb. Mac allowed it for a second or two and then drew back. Rosie whimpered and tried to pull her back. 

"Say it, Rosemary," Mac ordered softly, kneeling between Rosie's soft thighs and using her fingers to spread Rosie's labia. She was glistening and so very, very wet. "Say what you want."

"I did, I want you."

Mac positioned the head of the dildo at Rosie's entrance. "Say it all, Rosemary."

Rosie's cheeks were already flushed, but now they reddened completely, and her breath came in little gasps. "I want your cock inside me, Beth," she said, skimming her hands up Mac's arms and fisting them into her curly red hair. "I want you to fuck me with your cock and make me come." She pulled Mac's mouth down to hers. "Make love to me, Beth. Make me scream your name."

" _That's_ what I want to hear," Mac smiled, pushing into Rosie's cunt with one firm smooth thrust.

_"BETH!"_

"Oh, that’s my good girl..."


	395. Eternity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You _are_ desperate.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Jack looked around quickly. "In here," he said, his voice curt and demanding, and hustled Phryne into a lavatory. It was a well-appointed room but not the first choice for either of them... but needs must. 

"You're certainly in a hurry," Phryne laughed, letting Jack push her up against the papered wall and kiss her hungrily. "I'd almost think you've missed me while I was away."

"It was like an _eternity_ , Miss Fisher," he growled, his eyes gleaming. He snaked a hand up her light summer skirt and brushed his fingers across the crotch of her lacy knickers. "Don't go away again, d'you hear me?" He tugged the scant garment down and Phryne shimmied it the rest of the way off and then kicked it to one side. "At least not for a little while."

She stuck her tongue out and then kissed him. "I was only in Ballarat for a week! You could very well have come to visit me." She busied herself with the buttons of Jack's fly while he lifted her up, wrapping her thighs around his waist. "Think of all the fun we could have had at my pious cousins' house," she teased. She reached into his trousers and pulled him out, stroking the whole length of him and rubbing the first few drops of his arousal over the smooth head of his cock. "Think of how terribly we could have scandalised them..."

Jack muffed his groan against the hollow of her throat. "I have thought of it, Phryne. Many many times while you were gone."

"Hrmph. You know, sometimes I think you're--oh!" She bucked against him as he pushed his cock into her tight passage, and gripped the shoulders of his jacket hard. 

This was no time for seduction or technique; Phryne pulled his head up and pressed her mouth to his, both of them moaning and keening behind their clenched lips as they fucked each other wildly, gritting their teeth and trying not to scream when they climaxed almost brutally, one right after the other. 

After a few moments, Jack slid out of her carefully, and Phryne slid to the floor. 

"You all right?"

"Mmm... god, yes... oh..." She took one deep, slow breath, and then another. "A flannel, please."

Jack helped her clean up, and then attended to his own needs. "You think I'm what?"

"Eh?"

"What you were about to say. Sometimes, you think I'm--what?"

Phryne smirked up at him, her hat and hair askew and her lipstick all awry. "I was going to say 'Sometimes, I think you're no fun at all.'"


	396. Smoky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Shut up and dance with me.” (Jack/Lyle) Requested by meldanya44.

Lyle clung to the outskirts of the smoky dance hall. Phryne and Jack were impressing people on the dance floor and that was as it should be. He'd only been invited along out of politeness, after all. Jack hated for him to stay inside of a night, especially when their nights off coincided so rarely. But Phryne had been eager for the party in this disreputable, only mostly-legal establishment for weeks, and neither man would hear of her being disappointed.

So he hung back, away from the crowd, drinking execrable bottom-barrel whiskey and watching his oldest friend and the man he loved dancing without him. The music blared in rhythms that got right into Lyle's gut and did things to his chest and his cock that he didn't know were possible... How was dancing like that even possible, let alone legal?

There were a number of men dancing with one another, and a few women paired off in corner, arms draped possessively over each other's shoulders, waiting for their turn to impress. Lyle couldn't remember the last time he had danced with anyone he'd actually wanted to be dancing with...

Jack and Phryne stumbled off the floor, laughing. Jack twirled Phryne into the arms of the piano player and made a beeline for Lyle. He grabbed a handful of Lyle's uniform jacket and pulled him into a hungry, happy kiss. "Dance with me, lover," he said, grinning into the kiss.

The hairs on the back of Lyle's neck stood up, as did other parts of his anatomy. "I-I don't know how to dance like that," he stammered. "And it's getting warm, and—" Jack nibbled at his tongue. "Damn it, Robinson, stop it, people are—"

Jack's grin made Lyle's heart stop. "Shut up and dance with me."

*** 

Jack put a record on the gramophone and pulled Lyle from the sofa. "Dance with me, lover," he murmured, nuzzling Lyle's neck gently. "Dance with me."

The soft strains of the song caressed them as they revolved slowly around the living room. "This more to your liking?" Jack asked.

Lyle smiled and gripped Jack's waist with more confidence. "Much. Not that I don't enjoy cutting a rug with you in public, but... I like this better," he finished, rather shyly.

"Me too," Jack agreed, capturing his mouth in a soft sweet kiss. "For a number of reasons."

"Oh? And those would be?"

"Well, I can talk to you, for one, without needing to shout in your ear. I can put my lips to your ear..." He did so. "And tell you how very beautiful I find you, Lyle Compton, especially when I can convince you to put aside your uniform."

He sucked Lyle's earlobe gently, making the captain shiver.

"I can pull you against me..." He did so, slipped his hand from Lyle's shoulder to Lyle's ass and pressing them together, allowing Lyle to feel Jack's hardness against his own. "In a way I could do in a crowded smoky public dance hall."

"Mmm, you're definitely convincing me. Not that I needed convincing."

"And you know what else I can do?" Jack stopped their slow dance and untangled their fingers for the sole purpose of burying his hand in Lyle's hair and losing himself in another sweet, warm, lingering kiss. "I can pull you to the floor and make love to you in front of the fire, as often as I want to."

"Certainly can't do that in public," Lyle agreed, his mouth going dry in anticipation. "Is that something you had in mind for tonight?"

Jack smiled and nodded to the plush new hearth rug. Lyle shivered again, and followed Jack's lead.


	397. Priceless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “They were a gift!” (Mac/Phryne) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

“Oh my lord, these must’ve cost a fortune.” Phryne lifted the intricately strung pearls from their padded box and examined them carefully. “You’d best have them insured.”

“I’d best get them appraised and sell them as quickly as goddamn possible, you mean,” Mac said with a snort, from her spot draped over the little couch in Phryne’s bedroom. She’d put her trousers back on but nothing else, and without the benefit of the binder she normally wore, her braces were having trouble restraining her ample bosom. “Or just cut the wires and give them as gifts.”

“I hope you plan to wash them thoroughly first,” said Phryne dryly.

“They’re clean, I haven’t worn them.”

“What? Oh, now that is a crime.”

“Phryne. This is the most inappropriate gift I have ever received from _anyone_ , and while I am the farthest thing from a prude that God in His lunacy ever put on this earth, be that as it may, I am not – repeat, _not_ – wearing knickers made out of priceless pearls.” Mac gulped her whiskey and looked affronted. “Especially not when they’re liable to disappear into my cunny.”

“You may not be a prude, Mac, darling, but you do have your boring moments.” Phryne eyed the ropes of gemstones critically, and then glanced sideways. “Mind if I try them on?”

“...You know, maybe I won’t sell the thing after all...”


	398. Officer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That’s not what those are for.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by meldanya44.

Rosie Robinson met her husband of six months at the door. "Did you bring them?" she asked, trying and failing to keep the breathless eagerness from her voice. 

Jack came inside and unbuckled his constable's helmet. "I did," he said, smiling but still looking a bit unsure. "It wasn't difficult, but I did worry that someone was going to see and ask me what I wanted them for." He set his helmet on the mantelpiece and then beckoned to his wife. 

She went into his arms obediently, and melted into his warm, confident kiss. "Are you certain you want to do this?" Jack asked, for the umpteenth time. "I'm still not sure I understand, but if it's what you want..."

"It is." Rosie didn't entirely understand it herself; she only knew that after spending the whole of her young life struggling to establish an identity apart from her father's and trying to find her own place in the world, it was a comfort and a relief to put herself wholly in her gentle husband's power. "I want this, Jack."

"All right, love." He kissed her again, more firmly this time, pushing his tongue between her lips and plundering her mouth. When he released her, Rosie was breathing hard, and underneath her demure skirt, she was wet and aching for him. "Go into the bedroom."

"Jack... please, Jack, use your officer voice."

His lips twitched. "Go into the bedroom," he repeated, more commandingly. "I'll be there in five minutes. You're to be stripped naked and flat on the bed before I get there, or God help you."

Rosie shuddered all over. "Y-yes, Jack." He looked at her with his blue eyes hardened and piercing, and she nearly climaxed right there in the living room. 

She did as she was ordered, gladly. Her simple house dress had become far too warm and clinging, and her knickers were soaked. She left them where they fell, toed off her shoes and pulled off her stockings, and sprawled on her back on their bed, and waited.

Jack seemed to take forever to join her, and Rosie had nearly succumbed to the temptation to touch herself, when he entered the bedroom. He had removed his uniform jacket and his heavy boots and socks, and was now wearing only his singlet and his blue trousers. His braces hung slack at his hips. He had run his hands through his hair, disarraying the stubborn waves, so that now thick locks tumbled over his forehead and sent Rosie into sighs of delight. He always looked so very handsome when he was disheveled. 

But her attention was riveted on the item dangling from his hands, cold black loops of metal, filed smooth so not to damage the wrists of criminals. Rosie sat up on her hands, her eyes wide. 

Jack knelt on the bed and kissed her slowly. His free hand skimmed her body from flank to throat. "Last chance, love," he murmured teasingly. 

Rosie laughed and nipped his tongue. "Do your worst, constable. I'll never talk."

In a flash, Jack was pushing her down, straddling her hips, holding her slim wrists in one big hand while the other fumbled with the hand cuffs. Rosie pretended to struggle, but all she really wanted to do was grind her dripping mound up hard against his cloth-covered erection. 

"Hold still, woman," Jack growled, his lips and teeth in his kisses. "That's an order."

She had told him she wanted him to command her, that she wanted to obey. True to her desires, Rosie stilled, and let Jack cuff her wrists to the iron bed frame. She tested her weight against the strength of the forged cuffs. 

Jack laughed aloud, and this time Rosie moaned and arched up, trying to rub herself off against the rough crutch of his trousers. “Oh, don’t even bother trying,” he grinned, helping with his thumb stroking her clit. Rosie gasped and shrieked out his name, and then went limp on the bed. Jack brought his thumb to his mouth and sucked it thoroughly, watching her gasp quietly beneath him. “You’re not going anywhere.”


	399. Back Pocket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re never one to miss an opportunity for mischief, are you?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by Anonymous.

Jack’s eyes widened in alarm as the chief commissioner passed by Miss Fisher. “Give it back,” he hissed to her, as soon as the great man was safely out of earshot. 

Phryne calmly removed her compact and lipstick from her purse and began touching up her makeup. “Whatever do you mean, Jack?”

“The—” He glanced at the direction in which the chief had disappeared and lowered his voice. “The item you just lifted from the commissioner’s back pocket,” he said sternly. 

“Are you accusing me of _theft_ , Inspector Robinson?”

“If it comes to that, yes.” Jack leaned in. “Don’t make me arrest you, Miss Fisher. Just hand over the item, quietly.”

She sighed theatrically. “If you insist.” Phryne drew a small leather folder, of the sort used to hold photographs, from her purse and placed it in Jack’s hands. 

“Thank you.”

“But I swear I was only retrieving what was rightfully mine.”

Jack’s mild feeling of success faded away. “Yours… oh lord, take it back.”

Phryne accepted the little photo album with a small smirk. “Oh, don’t immediately jump to the wrong conclusions, darling. They’re not of me.”

“…I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”

“Better for me… much worse for your chief commissioner.” She waited while the implications raced through Jack’s brain. “Care to arrest me for blackmail, Inspector?”

He opted against it. Jack had learned… sometimes it was better to have a trump card against your boss.


	400. Texture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It was the terror of impermanence, the knowledge that all this would pass away, that a beautiful voice or a wonderful figure was something whose arrival you couldn't control and whose departure you couldn't delay.” (Terry Pratchett, _Maskerade_ ) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23. (Takes place immediately prior to [385: Unaccountable](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/16492834).)
> 
> I had planned to do something epic for Drabble #400, but then life happened. So here it is, and hopefully I'll be able to get back to my regularly-scheduled fic writing now. Thank you to everyone who's been here since the beginning and to everyone who's joined along the way. You're all incredible. ♥

“I don’t like being left behind,” Jack said, after they had been sitting in companionable, comfortable silence for a time, a state of affairs that, for a few weeks, Phryne had feared she would never again have the pleasure of experiencing.

She refilled, not for the first time, the empty whisky glass he held out to her. “I don’t think anyone does,” she commented, briefly considering and then pushing away the despair that had engulfed her when Jack had walked out of her life. “Though admittedly, I’m usually the one doing the leaving.”

Jack looked down at his glass and sighed. “My parents… my mates during the war… my wife… At least with Rosie, I had plenty of warning.”

“What we do is dangerous,” said Phryne simply. “Perhaps I court rather more danger than is strictly necessary—” Jack snorted and quirked a half-smile, but the eyes he turned on her were dark and haunted. “—but I’d rather die in an automobile crash, in a car I was driving, than be brought down ignominiously by some thug’s pistol.”

“Not everything is in your control, Miss Fisher.”

Phryne looked for a moment as though she was going to debate him on that point, and then set her whiskey down and rose from her seat on the chaise. “That’s what you think, Jack,” she said, sitting down in his lap.

She felt his breathing stop for a moment or two. He gazed up at her longingly but couldn’t seem to make himself move. Phryne took his drink and knocked it back, then put the empty glass down and took Jack’s hands, settling them on her waist. “I am not leaving you behind,” she murmured, beginning to run her hands gently through his pomaded hair. “That’s a promise.”

“Ohh…” Jack’s sigh ghosted up from deep within his chest. His hands clasped her hips more firmly and he rested his forehead against her chin. “That’s… quite a promise, coming from you… Phryne.”

“It is,” she agreed, gently tugging on his hair to tilt his head back so that she could see his eyes. “Which I suspect is why you’re not pushing me off your lap and politely wishing me a good night.”

“That is… certainly a part of it.” Jack tilted his head just so, as though pleading without words to be kissed, so Phryne kissed him gladly, gently. His lips were soft and tasted exhilaratingly strange under the last vestiges of her good whisky. She traced the underside of his lower lip with just the tip of her tongue and then tugged it lightly between her teeth.

Jack rumbled softly and rolled his head against her caressing hands. Charmed by how much he clearly relished the touch, Phryne worked her fingers deeply into his thick hair. It was much more delicate than it looked, and felt as heavy as soft as a fur rug, even with the layers of stiff pomade required to tame it to professional standards. Curious… not unpleasant, but strange, like the taste of his lips. 

She pulled away from his kisses, as much to catch her breath as to let him get his bearings. His eyes, a shade of blue that seemed suddenly otherworldly, clung to her.

“If I had known… how you felt,” Phryne said slowly, pressing her forehead to his, her nose against his, while her hands toyed with his tie, “I could perhaps have been less reckless before now.”

Jack let out a huff of a laugh. “No, you couldn’t have.”

“I did say ‘perhaps’.”

“Even if you’d known months ago.” His smile was wry and fond and his hands were tenderly shy, as they explored the skin just beneath the hem of her blouse. “Me caring for you would never change how you act.” He brushed his lips across her cheek. “Who you are. I’d never want it to.”

“I meant your fear of being left behind,” Phryne said, ruthlessly ignoring the warm flutter that his words raised in her stomach, concentrating instead on the renewed flood of wetness between her thighs. “I do try not to be thoughtlessly cruel… especially not to the people _I_ care about.”

Her fingers faltered on the knot of his tie. Jack’s hands left her waist and covered her hands, and they unfastened his tie together. 

They abandoned the parlour after that, moving up the stairs as though in a slow, lingering dream, kissing and discarding clothes languidly, without haste. Phryne’s breasts and cunt ached for his touch but the rest of her was unusually placid, and, when she recollected the night later, wondered if the effect had been from a determination not to let Jack down, or from Jack himself. 

He did have a knack for that.

“I didn’t know you were an orphan,” she said, after she had brought him to her bed, and he had taken up the place he wanted, lying not between her legs but against her side, with his head pillowed on her breasts. The ache in her groin was growing, but he was touching her now with a deftness of touch that was almost too tender. Phryne rolled her lips together, holding back a demand that he not cherish her quite so much. “What were they like? Your parents?”

“I don’t really remember.” He was silent for so long that Phryne had decided he was prepared to say no more on the subject, and lost herself to the sensations of his hands on her belly and thighs and the soft torment of his lips and tongue on her nipples. “I don’t even know what they called me.”

“Oh _god_ , Jack, don’t stop… you mean ‘Jack Robinson’ isn’t your real name?”

“It’s my legal name. But it’s the name I was given by the family that took me in, when I was… oh, about seven.” Jack pressed a kiss to the sensitive underside of Phryne’s breast; she whimpered. “Then they died, and I was in a children’s home, with books rather than family, to keep me company. With the heroes of Wells and Verne and Burroughs to keep me company, to teach me... That’s all I know.”

His hands finally, _finally_ wandered lower, slipping through her drenched pubic hair. Phryne arched eagerly into his touch, reflecting on how appropriate it was that her first night with Jack Robinson should have a mystery attached to it. 

Jack grinned. “We can’t seem to get away from them.”

“Oh fuck, did I say that out loud? I—oh _fuck_ , yes!” Phryne fisted her hands into the sheets and buried her mouth and her wail of pleasure in Jack’s hair. The smell of him and of her mingled together and blotted out everything else for a few seconds. “God... are you really that good or am I just that desperate tonight?”

Jack rose up on his hands and pressed his lips to hers. “Whichever you prefer.” He shifted over her and then gasped, his breath hitching in his chest, when she reached down and wrapped her hand around his cock. 

“For argument’s sake, let’s say I’m desperate.” Phryne’s smile was bright and hot. “I wouldn’t want such talent to go to your head.”

It was her normal breezy flirtation and nothing more, but Jack suddenly looked shaken. “I’m not about to run off and look for someone else to practice on, if that’s what you mean.”

Phryne was instantly serious. “It’s not.” She kissed his throat, the easiest part of him for her lips to reach. “It never will be.” She guided the head of his cock into her folds and then curled her hands around his hips, urging him forward. He filled her so exquisitely that she nearly came again, just from the weight and the... the _texture_ of him. 

Jack swallowed. “Don’t make me promises, Phryne...” he rasped. “I don’t expect you to keep them.”

“Oh Jack...” Phryne bit her lower lip, then his, holding him inside her. “How little you know me.”


	401. Meddle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What can you do for me?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by phrynefisherismyrolemodel.

_She’s a nuisance, a menace, a danger to herself and others, a frivolous rich young woman with short skirts and bobbed hair and a gun that's probably illegal and lips that are **definitely** illegal, and a decided tendency to meddle in other’s affairs for all the noblest and most infuriating reasons, and I have a niggling suspicion that she’s going to be barging her way into more than one of my cases._

_...This might be fun._

***

_He’s as sober and grumpy as a wet parson on a cold Sunday, he’s a stickler for the rules and clearly without an ounce of humor or adventure, he’s dour, he’s upright, he is unfortunately handsome and already very good at making me not want to behave myself and I really can’t wait to see him again._

_...I am going to **enjoy** this._


	402. Dance Card

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I borrowed your lipstick.” (Phryne/Lillian) Requested by damnbrunettes.

“Give it back,” Lili demanded, holding out her hand. “It was frightfully expensive and I’ve only got a bit of it left.”

“Sorry, Lil, darling,” Phryne replied, her beautifully red lips curving into a genuinely rueful smile. “I didn’t realize when I started, and I’ve just used up the last of it. But,” she continued, sliding off the dressing table chair and into Lili’s lap, “I promise to buy you more. And I think there might be enough for both of us, after all...”

She pressed her lips firmly and carefully to Lili’s, and when she pulled away, Lili’s lips were precisely as red as Phryne’s. “You’re forgiven,” Lili allowed, smiling up at her lover, “provided you let me take the rest of that off of you, after this evening’s party.”

Phryne kissed her again, lightly, so as not to smudge their lipstick. “I’ll mark you on my dance card.”


	403. Impartiality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I need your help.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

Phryne listened quietly as Jack explained the situation, and the case he needed her to step in on, unofficially, with as much delicacy as possible. “It’s a family affair,” he admitted, “well, I’m an old friend of their family, and the commissioner wants me to stay out of it. To ‘avoid bad press,’ so he says.” 

“He’s questioning your impartiality.”

“That’s his job, Phryne. The police department… doesn’t have the best of reputations right now.” Jack’s smile was forced and fleeting. Phryne knew how much that admission pained him. The police department was practically the only family he had left.

“I’ll do everything I can,” she promised.


	404. Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I never thought you’d feel this way.” (Mac/Rosie) Requested by meldanya44.

The feeling of another woman’s softness curled up beside her was a familiar one for Mac. Less familiar was the sensation of peace and comfort and safety mingled in with the afterglow. The safety, that was… strange. Like coming home after a long, wearying journey. 

She pulled Rosie closer into the circle of her arms. “This is…” Mac began, and then trailed off, uncertain of how much she should say, or even how much she _wanted_ to say aloud. _You’re incredible. You make me want to climb the tallest building in the city and sing. I want to wake up next to you every day for the rest of my life._

Rosie studied Mac’s face for a moment or two, then kissed her softly. “I know,” she murmured, smiling and stroking Mac’s cheek. “I know.”


	405. Risque

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A dirty book is rarely dusty.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

_Dear Phryne,_

_I hope this reaches you before the day in question, but in case it doesn’t, happy belated birthday. I’d planned to be in England long before now, in answer to your imperious summons that day at the airfield, but we’re short-handed and up to our ears in labor disputes. No doubt you have plenty to amuse yourself with in London – the newspaper clippings you sent in your last were very… entertaining. Solving murders with a peer’s son, and one with an inside line to Scotland Yard, no less, must certainly be more invigorating than butting heads with a poor dull DI. Thank you for telling me he’s a complete ass and not worth your time. I almost believe you._

_I’ve enclosed a small gift in honor of your birthday, the most luxurious little copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets I’ve ever seen. Cliché, I know. No doubt you would be better served by something a touch more... risqué. But nonetheless, it is well-intentioned, and won’t get you arrested when you return. God how I miss you. A man can only live so long on one kiss, and all the poetry’s gone out of murder since you left. Forgive the melodrama, and come home soon._

_All my love, Jack._


	406. Platonic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Just don't break anything.” (Mac/Jack/Phryne) Requested by mollidraws.
> 
> Rather honoring the spirit instead of the letter of the prompt here... ah well. ;)

Jack has always been a creature of interest to Mac. First because he is Phryne’s (whether or not either of them realize it), and second because he seems so damned... decent. It is the closest Mac can come to categorizing him, even if she does feel that the word is more applicable to someone like Hugh Collins, a man with a good heart and good intentions who is still trying to find his footing in the world. Jack, though, is firmly grounded, despite his heart being somewhere up in the air and far far away, though mercifully not in pieces.

But the rest of him is in Melbourne and rooted in the present, and Mac has always respected people who can look reality in the eye and carry on. More to the point, she has to respect a man who can look _her_ in the eye and discuss police business and science and whisky with the same level of politeness and courtesy he would show to any other colleague. She isn’t Phryne and he doesn’t flirt with her (Mac’s never been much good at playing that game, anyhow), but since Phryne’s been gone he’s let himself relax a bit around her, and it’s a good feeling.

She likes to look at him. The angles of his face are endlessly fascinating to her; he is both handsome and not, depending on the way the light falls on his face. His hands are beautiful. Sometimes she gives him instruments to hold or handle, just for the pleasure of watching them in motion… and wondering. She’s learned (not from Phryne) that Jack Robinson is surprisingly adept in the bedroom.

They decide that, when Jack’s ready to go after Phryne, he and Mac will go to England together. The trichotomy of their Platonic little group has gone on for far too long, causing logic and spirit and appetite to turn longingly towards the west.


	407. Wishy-Washy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The name doesn’t ring a bell.” (Phryne/Jack) For phrynefisherismyrolemodel.

Jack rose from his desk and carefully shut the door of his office, then re-crossed the worn floorboards with slow, deliberate steps. He scrubbed his face with his palms once or twice and then bit the bullet. “I need a favour.”

Phryne raised a pencil-thin eyebrow and looked deeply intrigued. “You have my attention, Inspector,” she all but purred. 

“I’ve spent the past four hours ‘discussing’ the Worthington murder case with young Mr. Fitzpatrick.” At Phryne’s blank look, he clarified, “Thomas Fitzpatrick? The son of the late industrialist? You danced with him at your aunt’s soiree last month?”

“I danced with a lot of men that night…”

“The gangly red-head who kept stepping on your toes.”

“Oh, _him_! Don’t tell me you consider him a suspect. He seems a bit wishy-washy to be a murderer.”

Jack snorted. “Thomas Fitzpatrick would turn green and faint at the sight of a medium-rare steak. I doubt he did the actual murder but I _do_ think he knows, or at least has a hunch, about who did.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“He won’t tell me.”

“Do you think he’s scared of repercussions?”

“No. I think he’s genuinely incapable of thinking about anything more complicated than what necktie he’s going to wear tomorrow morning and if it will match his socks.” He folded his arms over his chest and perched on the edge of his desk, looking down at Phryne and worrying his lower lip absently with his teeth. “But he did manage to exert his brain hard enough to tell me that it was almost certain that the murderer will be attending his house party this weekend. Apparently Jonas Worthington’s girlfriend has been receiving threatening letters.”

Phryne blinked. “Jonas Worthington had a girlfriend?”

“Mmhmm. Sadie Bridger.”

“What, the girl who said she wanted to pin a medal on the person who took off the top of Worthington’s head with a shotgun?”

“The very same.” Jack rolled his eyes heavenward. “God save me from a weekend in a Fitzroy townhouse full of Bright Young Things.”

“But why should… Jack! Did Fitzpatrick invite you to his party?”

“Under duress, but yes. It was either that or try to get warrants for the twenty-odd people who were with Worthington when he died, and three of them are the children of MPs.”

Phryne’s intrigue had turned into badly-suppressed excitement. “So it’s undercover for you again, Jack.” 

“Yes. Which is where the favour comes in.” Jack unfolded his arms and curled his fingers around the edge of his desk, knowing that he was going to be repaying this favour for years to come. “I need you to be my date.”


	408. Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel young.” (Jack & Rosie) Requested by firesign23.

“Are you going to England to stay?” Rosie asked quietly. When Jack didn’t reply, she pressed, gently, “How many bridges are you planning to burn?”

“Not as many as I would have, once. As to staying... I don’t know.” Jack rubbed his palms against his knees, and then stood up and began pacing her little parlour with ill-disguised agitation. “There’s a part of me that belongs to a much younger man, that’s ready to give up the whole police business, start over doing something different, with her... and then I wonder if...” 

“If Miss Fisher will still want you, if you’re not able to give her the inside information she needs?” Jack flinched, but nodded. “Well... will she?” 

“Rosie! I thought you were done thinking she was out to ruin me.” 

She smiled lopsidedly. “I don’t for a moment think that’s her intent. But it’s a lot to give up for someone you’re not sure of. Are you certain this is the right thing to do?” 

“God, Rosie, I don’t know, anymore. Sometimes it seems like the only times in my life I’ve been happy are when I was doing what wasn’t the noble thing. My relationship with you. My friendship with Dr. Macmillan.” He took a deep breath. “And my relationship with Phryne Fisher.”

Jack sank into chair and looked at his former wife with an expression of sheer weariness. “My whole life, I’ve looked up to and tried to emulate the right people. Look how that’s turned out.” 

Rosie leaned forward and kissed his forehead, and then thumped his shoulder gently. “Then maybe it’s time for you to be irresponsible, for a change.”


	409. Philosophy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Dining with your pet tonight, Miss Fisher?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by meldanya44.

Jack looked up from his newspaper at the gentle knock of Mr. Butler on the parlour door. “Excuse me, Miss, but Professor Murray called to say that he will be a little delayed this evening.”

“That’s Edwin,” Phryne sighed, rolling her eyes fondly. “In that case, Mr. Butler, better that supper be a little delayed as well.”

“Of course, Miss.” Mr. Butler smiled, and then turned to Jack. “Will you be needing any further refreshment this evening, sir?”

“Oh, no thank you, Mr. Butler.” Jack folded up his newspaper and rose from the chair. “It’s past time I was getting home.” He waited for the old man to retreat to his kitchen domain, and then turned to Phryne with a small but decidedly wicked smile lurking about the corners of his mouth. “So it’s the philosophy professor this evening, hmm? And which great thinker will you be studying tonight, Miss Fisher? Plato? Aristotle?”

Phryne sat back in her chair as though it was an ancient throne and gazed up at Jack with a regal sort of glee. “What about you, Jack? It’s your night for the Musical Society meeting, and there is always that lovely music teacher you’re so fond of. Is there Mozart on the program tonight, perhaps? Tchaikovsky? Gilbert and Sullivan? Oh, never mind. I know how much you dislike operettas.”

“Only as much as you dislike poker. And no, Evelyn’s in Adelaide this week, visiting her husband. It’s his birthday.”

“How sweet! You know, they really are the most devoted of estranged couples. So how do you plan to, er, express your appreciation at your next Musical Society meeting?"

“Well, you did teach me that delightful trick that your sailor friend Bobby picked up in Indonesia...”

“Oh, the more _that_ gets around, the better.”

“Do you plan to teach the professor that technique, or is that a bit too advanced for him?”

“Pet’s proven a very apt pupil, thank you very much,” said Phryne serenely. 

Jack chuckled and pressed a firm, slow kiss to Phryne’s lips. “Have a good night, Miss Fisher,” he smirked, collecting his hat and coat before slipping out the front door.


	410. Bridegroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Why did you scream like that?” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> An early Alien!Jack fic...

Rosie Robinson, as she was now, clung to her new husband as they gasped together in post-coital aftermath, and shook. 

Jack's arms tightened around her even further. “I’m sorry,” he murmured rapidly, burying his face in her curly dark hair, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”

“For... for what, darling?”

“I... didn’t I hurt you?”

“ _Hurt_ me?” Rosie’s eyes widened as she looked up. “No! No... not in the slightest.”

“But... you...” Jack’s smooth lean cheeks suddenly felt very hot. “You were... so loud,” he said, awkwardly, trying not to let on just how new he was to all of this. It was somehow impossible to avoid sexual topics among humans, and at the same time somehow impossible to learn anything of substance. He prayed his fumbling would be taken as that of a shy new bridegroom and no more.

It was Rosie’s turn to blush. “I know that wasn’t at all demure or maidenly,” she said, hiding her face in his shoulder again. “But... God, Jack, you feel so _good_. I didn’t think... I mean, I thought I knew what to expect. I wasn’t completely ignorant, my mother and my sisters had told me things, but nothing like...”

Overcome with relief and giddiness, Jack kissed her, and shifted his hips gently. Rosie let out a deep guttural groan that went straight to his groin. “In that case,” he said, his voice going husky with desire once more, “I think I like hearing you, sweetheart.”


	411. Melodramatic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did you miss me?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Jack returned to his office to find Miss Fisher sitting on his desk. It wasn’t an unusual place for him to find her, except that he had been out of town for a week and had not yet informed her of his return. “Miss Fisher!”

“Welcome back, Jack. Did you enjoy your holiday?”

“Rather an enforced holiday, but it was pleasant enough.”

“Hmm, true,” Phryne agreed, “obligatory trips to visit one’s family are highly over-rated and almost never fun. How’s your cousin Fitz?”

“As appalling as ever, and his new wife tried to inveigle me into the potting shed. How did you know I was back?” Jack demanded. His voice was bland and his face impassive, but his eyes twinkled. “Unless you’ve taken to spending every day lounging about on my desk in hope of my return.”

Phryne grinned. “Nothing quite so melodramatic. Hugh told Dot you were expected back today.”

“I’d hoped to make it back last night, but I missed my train.”

“Hmm. Did you miss me, Jack?”

The glitter in Jack's blue eyes became a full-on fire. “As a thirsty man misses water.”

He crossed his office in three steps and wrapped her in his arms, crushing his mouth down on hers. “Did you miss _me_ , Phryne?”

“More than I – _oh_ – like to admit.” She bit his tongue softly as he pulled away. “It’s been days, darling, but when I pleasure myself, I can still smell you on my fingers.”

Jack let out a strangled growl and kissed her again.


	412. Overkill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That’s not mine.” (Mac/Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Mac signaled to the night watchmen at the building where _Women's Choice_ magazine was housed. He knew her and let her in at once (the price of a few fags was little enough to pay, Mac reasoned). "Evenin', Doc," he grunted amiably.

"Evening, Sam," Mac replied, tipping her hat to the fellow. Her mind, though, was already up the stairs, and she hurried to follow it.

In the office that had once been occupied by the late Marcella Lavender, a tall elegant figure with a mound of curly brown hair piled atop her head sat at the slanted desk, absorbed in her paints. Mac slipped into the office and quietly closed the door and locked it.

Startled, Rosie looked up. "Beth, darling! What brings you here?"

"It's half-past nine. I came to drive you home."

Rosie blinked and squinted at the clock on the wall. "How did it get so late so soon?" She sighed and smiled at her beloved. "I'm sorry, love, but I can't. I need to finish these illustrations if we're going to make the printer's deadline."

"You've been working back every night for three weeks," Mac pointed out. "I spoke with Regina – she says you're practically four issues ahead of schedule."

"Only for the fiction illustrations. I like to have those done and out of the way so I can concentrate on any rush jobs that come along..." Rosie trailed off, flushing a bit under Mac's dry gaze. "I like this job so much, and you know I've never really _worked_ before... I don't want Miss Charlesworth to think I'm taking advantage of her kindness by not doing a good job."

Mac drew the roller shade down over the frosted glass pane in the office door. "Nonsense. She thinks you're absolutely the lobster's dress shirt."

As Mac had hoped, the absurd flapper slang made Rosie burst into laughter. Mac grinned as she strolled across the office, rounded the low file cabinet in the middle of the room, and handed Rosie down from the desk's high chair, taking her into her arms. "You've been working too hard, love," she murmured, kissing her softly. "No one here doubts your commitment to your job, but there is such a thing as overkill."

"I suppose... mmm... it certainly gets lonesome here, late in the evenings... and I've missed you, Beth."

"And I've missed you..." Mac's voice and lips dropped lower. "It's been weeks since I had you in my bed."

Rosie laughed, rather breathlessly. "Beth, don't be silly, I'm there every night."

"I meant properly. You've been coming in so late, and I've been leaving so early, that there's been no time for more... amorous activities."

"The ulterior motive reveals itself," Rosie teased, grabbing one of Mac's hands and putting it on her thigh. "You just haven't gotten yourself laid in weeks."

"Guilty as charged."

"Why not? You've got plenty of options."

"Because I want you." Mac grasped Rosie by her waist and, in a blink, spun her around and had her laid on her back on the low filing cabinet. "I've almost forgotten what you taste like," Mac growled, pushing Rosie's skirt up over her thighs. "Oh... Rosie, that's _naughty_..."

Rosie smirked at her lover as Mac traced the lines of garter suspenders up her pale legs, to the belt that encircled her waist, framing in black the picture of her dark mound and glistening nether lips, with no knickers in sight. "You're not the only one who's been regretting the lack of time for fun and games," she said, her low voice gone sultry.

With a moan, Mac sank to her knees. She splayed her hands against Rosie's thighs, spread those wet pink lips with her thumbs, and pressed her mouth to their sweetness.

Rosie clamped a hand over her mouth and fisted the other into Mac's hair, determined to be quiet. But it was so hard, with Mac tongue teasing at her clit one second and plunging into her folds the next, and her sensitive surgeon's fingers squeezing at her thighs and her ass... "Oh, _God_ , Beth, that _tongue_..."

Mac chuckled into her, and Rosie moaned again. "See what you've been missing?" Mac murmured, moving her lips to Rosie's clit and slipping three long fingers deep inside her.

Now Rosie needed both hands to stay quiet, but tiny whimpers and gasps and curses trickled through. "Beth, Beth... ohgod ohgod ohgod _Beth!!!_ " Her thighs went stiff on either side of Mac's head for a second, and then she dropped, bonelessly, to the top of the cabinet. "God..."

Standing slowly, Mac pressed a kiss to Rosie's shapely calf, and then sucked her fingers clean.

Rosie watched hungrily as Mac stood up. “That’s not all, I hope, darling...”

Mac pulled off her suit jacket and draped it over the back of Rosie’s chair. Then, holding Rosie’s eyes, she unfastened her trousers. 

“Oh... oh _my_...” Rosie licked her lips. “That’s definitely not one of mine.”

“It’s not. I got this one especially.” Mac grinned. “Turn over.”

She spread Rosie’s legs and fucked her deeply, bending over her and squeezing her breasts through her blouse, and biting at the side of Rosie's neck and the shell of her ear.

When Rosie came, she came _hard_ – convulsing around the dildo so forcefully Mac worried she might wrench it from the harness altogether (she had done that before) – but silently. It might be late, but the building still wasn't entirely empty.

Rosie gasped for breath and reached for Mac's hand, squeezing it and lacing their fingers together.

"You really need to seduce me some place where I can make noise," she scolded tiredly, and then sighed as Mac painted the back of her neck with kisses.


	413. Glorious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I am very naked right now and thinking of you.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by meldanya44.

“City South, Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson speaking.”

“Hallo, Jack.”

“...Miss Fisher. Is this an emergency?”

“Am I interrupting something?”

“A multitude of things, all of them tedious.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing I called.”

“And why did you call? To inform me that an old friend of yours has been found dead in their bathtub? Or just for a chat?”

“Merely to inform you, Inspector, that I am at this moment sprawled across my bed, gloriously naked.”

“Glorious – wait, since when do you have a telephone in your bedroom?”

“Since this afternoon. And your grasp of salient points never ceases to impress me.”

“Thank you. That’s a compliment I rate very highly. So, glossing over the question of why you had a telephone installed in your bedroom, why exactly are you favoring me with a naked phone call?”

“Why, to invite you to dinner, of course.”

“...Of course. Served in your bedroom?”

“Of course.”


	414. Devoted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “She doesn’t understand you like I do.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> Reconciled Jack/Rosie, because that's what was asked for. ;)

Jack looked up as the door slammed. “ _Why_ do I even bother trying to reason with Phoebe anymore?” Rosie demanded, tearing her hat off and almost flinging it across the sitting room. 

Her husband-to-be (again) caught the cloche in the tips of his fingers just before it landed in the fireplace. “Not a productive luncheon?”

“She suggested I might commit myself to a sanitarium for a few weeks, to ‘think things through.’” Rosie unfastened her coat irritably and then scrubbed her fingers through her hair. “My sister thinks I’m mad, Jack.”

“It does seem a bit mad, when one stands back and thinks about it, I suppose,” Jack said. He set Rosie’s hat carefully on a side table and took Rosie into his arms. “She’s a devoted elder sister and she wants what’s best for you. She doesn’t think we’re right for each other anymore. It’s understandable.”

Rosie buried her face in his shoulder and breathed slowly and shakily for some minutes. “She’s wrong,” she said finally. “Phoebe’s wrong. I’m not a child anymore, and I’m not desperate.” She looked up. “Take me to bed, Jack. I want to feel you.”


	415. Outrageous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Her kisses left something to be desired... the rest of her.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Is the door locked?” Phryne gasped, trying not to arch too eagerly into Jack’s hand as it explored beneath her skirt.

“Maybe,” he half-growled, half-chuckled, his lips pressed against her throat.

“You might want to—” She broke off, swiftly burying her mouth in his hair. The luxurious scent of his pomade and the spicy smell of his cologne filled her nostrils, and for a second or two, they blotted out everything else. “Jack, check the door, for God’s sake!”

He moaned and dragged his mouth back up to hers. “Don’t worry,” Jack rumbled, kissing her as though he was starved for her. “No one will bother us. The amount of hasty sex going on in this station is utterly outrageous.”

“You’re joking!”

“Afraid not. Constable Foster’s last two kids were conceived behind the front counter, and that’s barely scratching the surface. Besides, you’re hardly the first lady I’ve entertained over this desk, you know.”

“So you’ve mentioned,” Phryne purred, raising her hips to let Jack slide her knickers down. “But you’ve never once elaborated on that, and I am so _very_ curious…”

“You’ve uncovered so many of my mysteries already… I have to maintain at least a few of them.” Jack watched her make short work of his fly, and groaned deep in his chest when she cupped him, skin to skin. “But I know how to be quiet, Miss Fisher. The question is: do you?”


	416. Taste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I'm sorry if it upsets you, but I’m going to marry her.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> A follow-up to [Chapter 414: Devoted](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/17920597).

Rosie laughed, breathlessly, as Jack trailed his lips up and down the insides of her thighs. “It really is a pity Phoebe doesn’t think we’re a good couple anymore,” she pointed out, trembling as Jack clasped his big hands about her hips. “Because... fuck, Jack... she’s very wrong.”

Jack chuckled richly, inching up the bed, closer and closer to Rosie’s dripping cunt. “It’s going to be a very dramatic moment,” he said, “when I announce to your sister that I’m absolutely going to marry you again.” He paused to rise up on his hands and lick a wide stripe up Rosie’s still-trim stomach and between her breasts, to kiss his intended deeply. “Funny how she’s the only one who’s likely to be upset.”

“Even funnier that it’s not solely for the sake of the baby.” 

The kiss became, for a moment, exquisitely tender. “I love you,” Jack murmured, his eyes deep and soft. Then he slid back down and buried his mouth between her thighs. 

He had always craved the taste of her, Rosie remembered, vividly, before losing herself in pleasure.


	417. Unpardonable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It’s very hard to review one’s past without cheating a little.” (Simone de Beauvoir) (Phryne) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

The past, Phryne Fisher reflected, had an unfortunate habit of following one, regardless of whether or not one was particularly interested in bringing up the past. It was not in her nature to reminisce about old times, but when she did, she tended to... embroider them, somewhat.

Father, of course, was fond of talking about old times, and in such rosy terms that it made Phryne want to swallow three g-and-ts and then jump out a window. Aunt Prudence was apt to sigh about how much better things had been in the good old days, before ‘the riff-raff moved in’, et cetera. Mother... Mother fell silent at such moments, or steered the conversation back to the present. 

All told, Phryne was more of her father’s feeling (in this respect _only_ ). When it came to one’s own past, especially such a past as hers... well, a good memory was unpardonable.


	418. Absconded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I wish this night would never end.” (Jack/Phryne/Lili/Sam) Requested by sheldonslog.

The enormous housewarming party continued on downstairs, unaware that its host and hostess had absconded with the guests of honour, and uncaring of who was throwing the party in the first place. The champagne was good, the music was loud, and the pool was deep and blue. 

Upstairs, in a gargantuan master bedroom, in a sinfully large master bed, the Elsworths and the Fisher-Robinsons danced a slow dance of their very own. 

“This is wonderful,” Lili murmured sleepily, resting in Phryne’s arms, while Jack and Sam had their turn. 

Phryne kissed her forehead. “So it is... so it is.”


	419. Law-Abiding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “In my defense, the moon was full and I was left unsupervised.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by edeainfj.

“You’re a lunatic,” Jack declared in a whisper, trying not to trip over his coattails as he followed Phryne up to the roof of the cathedral.

They were in France somewhere now… or was it Italy? Somewhere in the sparsely-populated European countryside, that was all he knew for sure. She’d cut their day’s flying short to land in a wheat field and make love (and he wasn’t complaining about that) but by the time she’d worn him out thoroughly, it was too dark to resume this leg of their flight home. So she had suggested exploring the village instead. In the middle of the night.

“We’re going to be arrested for trespassing,” Jack complained, as they came out onto the leads of the roof. “Or just shot for being no better than we should be.”

“Nonsense. Everyone’s asleep, like the good law-abiding souls that they are.”

“We should be so lucky…”

Phryne looped her arm through his and drew him close.

Jack sighed. The little village below really was quite beautiful in the moonlight.


	420. Driftwood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I wish we could just lie here all day.” (Mac/Rosie) Requested by meldanya44.

Rosie handed Mac a mug of strong tea and curled up against her on the sofa. Outside on the beach, the waves crashed with the incoming tide, and the light faded swiftly, leaving the lovers illuminated only by firelight and hurricane lamp.

“It sounds like a bad storm.”

“It does. We should be fine in here, though,” Mac said. She grinned a bit, her eyes warm. “It’s not as though we had anything else planned for today.”

Drawn by her dry warmth, Rosie stretched up to kiss Mac, before she settled back down against Mac’s side, pulling a fluffy knitted afghan around her shoulders.

“It was kind of Phryne and Jack to loan us the use of their holiday cottage,” she murmured.

Mac replied with a wordless, contented hum, and carded the fingers of her free hand gently through Rosie’s curly hair.

In the fireplace, the salt-soaked driftwood blazed with otherworldly splendors.


	421. Proud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The day you realize that it was supposed to be me, I would still accept you with open arms. I don’t know if that is love or insanity.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.
> 
> (Taken from [this Tumblr post](http://wordsnquotes.com/post/149639970833/the-day-you-realize-that-it-was-supposed-to-be-me).)

“Jack, dear, have you seen the paper today?”

He raised an eyebrow at his wife’s greeting. “No, not yet. I hardly had time to breathe at the station. Why, what’s happened, Emma?”

His wife of eighteen months scooped up a newspaper from a table in the hall and lifted up her lips for a kiss. Jack smiled, warmed as always by the laughter and love in her sparkling brown eyes, and obliged her. Emma gazed up at him happily, as though he was the most amazing man in the world. He sometimes wished she wouldn’t, it could not be good for either of them... but he couldn’t deny that it made him feel rather proud.

He glanced down at the newspaper, and felt the blood drain from his face.

“Peer’s Daughter Returns to Melbourne”

_Phryne..._

Emma followed his line of sight. “That’s what I wanted to show you. She’s a friend of yours, isn’t she?”

“She was, once... we worked together quite a lot for a year or so, back in the twenties.” Jack allowed himself to remember, just for a moment, the smell of Jicky and the warm waxy press of expensively made-up lips against his own. “Then she went back to England and... well, we fell out of touch.” It wasn’t even much of a lie, though he had simplified things, for Emma’s sake.

Absently, he took off his hat as he gazed at the photograph. It had been five years since Phryne had flown away. He’d never forgotten her. He doubted she’d forgotten him. But she had moved on and so had he... or so he’d thought.

“You should call on her,” Emma suggested genially, taking his hat and the newspaper and heading back to the kitchen. “Talk about old times, that sort of thing!” she added, throwing a grin over her shoulder.

Jack stared after his wife, unseeing. No, he would not call on Phryne. If she wanted him, she’d come looking. And he’d answer, damn her.


	422. Benevolent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Tea soothes tears.” (Jane & Mr. Butler) Requested by blackkitty9.

Jane wrenched open the front door of Wardlow, hurled herself inside and slammed the door behind her. She bolted upstairs, ignoring Miss Phryne’s worried call after her and Aunt Prudence’s affronted demands to know what she was about, and ran into her room, slamming that door as well. The force of it shook the pictures on her walls and toppled a book off her bureau. 

She threw her satchel on her bed, then threw herself after it and sobbed aloud for a long time, and then waited with a tightness in her chest for Miss Phryne to come and ask what was wrong. Or Aunt Prudence, or even Dot. Someone would come and demand to know what was the matter, and Jane didn’t want to talk about it. It was stupid and pointless, anyway... But much as she didn’t want to talk about why she was in such a bad mood, she did want someone to come and check on her. And it didn’t seem as though anyone was going to bother...

There was a gentle tap on her door. “Miss Jane? I don’t mean to intrude, but I thought you might like some tea.”

She sat up and wiped her eyes. “Yes... come in, Mr. Butler.”

He entered with a tray, his smooth benevolent face full of carefully-marked concern. “It sounds like you’ve had a hard day. I thought you could do with a pick-me-up and some privacy before dinner.”

Jane felt another wave of tears building, but softer this time. “Thank you, Mr. Butler,” she said, with a little smile.


	423. Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I missed you immediately upon waking this morning.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

The bed beneath her was so exquisitely soft, and the bedclothes above her were so wonderfully warm, that when Jack left the bed, no doubt to answer a call of nature or go to work or something equally prosaic, Phryne almost didn't care. His warmth and his scent lingered in the sheets, filling her subconscious with a pervading feeling of safety.

"I love you," she murmured thickly, reaching for Jack's pillow and cuddling it to her cheek.

Somewhere off in the distance, she heard him chuckle. "I love you, too."

Phryne slept again. 

When she woke once more, late in the morning, there was only a ghost of his warm comforting presence left, and the memory of his goodbye kiss on her cheek.


	424. Lark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He has a face I’d rather like to shock.” (Rosie/Mac) Requested by meldanya44.

Rosie sat in her little rented house, waiting for her fiancé to return. Nervous energy hummed through her. 

They wanted to keep everything _very_ hush-hush, for a number of reasons, so they had removed from Melbourne a month ago to this tiny and secluded mountain town. Rosie rented her little furnished cottage, and her intended took a room at the local boarding house. It wasn’t strictly necessary – they could have just as well married in Melbourne, after a fashion. But running away and having a secret marriage in the mountains appealed to their long-dormant romantic natures. 

She heard a knock at the front door and hurried to open it. “Mr. McCann,” she greeted him, for the benefit of the town doctor and his wife, who were at that moment passing by on the dusty street. “Do come in.”

The slim red-headed man passed silently into Rosie’s parlour, and when the door was safely closed, let out a laugh, scrubbing her fingers through her short mop of curly hair. “God, this has been the biggest lark of my life!” Mac crowed. 

Rosie went into her intended’s arms and kissed her soundly. “And where have you been?”

“To see the registrar and the rector. We can fill out the paperwork tomorrow and have the ceremony on Saturday.”

“And no one suspects…?”

“Suspects that Elias McCann is actually a woman? Not for a moment. It’s amazing what a cropped head and a clever tailor can do for a girl.”

Rosie grinned. “We could get into an awful lot of trouble, you know.”

“We’re only barely committing ecclesiastical fraud. And it’s not as though we’re going to legally file the license.”

“Hmm…” Rosie wrapped her arms around Mac’s waist. “Phryne and Jack are a bad influence on us…”

“They’d be delighted to hear that. Pity Jack’s so inured to this sort of thing now,” Mac mused, “I would have liked to shock him with the news.”

Rosie snorted and then kissed her soon-to-be wife. “Well, there’s always Hugh Collins.”


	425. Nuisance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Oh… evening!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by Anonymous.

“I’ve a good mind to leave you there,” Jack said, tilting his head back a bit more to look up into Phryne Fisher’s face as she dangled from a bolt of cotton. “Just hanging about, enjoying the night air…”

“Jack!”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and grinned. 

Hugh Collins came trotting round the corner of the building. “Everything seems secure, sir,” he reported, his breath fogging in the chill. “No sign of anyone still here.”

“Right. Well.” 

The two men looked up at the woman hanging impatiently from the building.

“I hate to be a nuisance, gentlemen, but if you wouldn’t mind…?”

Jack and Hugh looked at one another and sighed. 

Hugh, as the more solid of the two, took up a position a few inches out from underneath Phryne. He stopped and made a stirrup of his hands, and Jack climbed up onto Hugh’s shoulders, putting him about level with Phryne’s knees. “Come on,” Jack urged. 

He wrapped his arms around Phryne’s legs, taking her weight against his chest and firmly instructing his mind to concentrate on the job. He braced his feet against Hugh’s shoulders, preparing for Phryne to let go of her makeshift rope. “And bring the cloth with you. It’s evidence.”


	426. Clutches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Do you have any idea what time it is?” (Jack & Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

It was late. Too late, really, to be calling on anyone. But Jack's conscience would not let him wait one second more. "While I was abroad... I... Rosie, Miss Fisher and I were married in Fremantle last week."

She looked at him in shock, and her lips went white, as though he had struck her. "Oh, Jack," was all she said, for several moments. Then, "Why?"

"Because I love her. Because we understand one another." His lips twitched. "Because I've grown too accustomed to her to do otherwise." He watched Rosie carefully, anticipating her reaction and becoming ever more tense when she continued to stare at him mournfully. 

"I want to offer my congratulations... but I can't. I've heard such rumors about that woman, that the idea of you being married to her... Jack, how can you sit there and tell me it was what you wanted?"

"What rumors have you heard?" he asked, bluntly but not unkindly. 

"That she's promiscuous," Rosie retorted, "and immoral, and prone to meddling in police affairs."

"No doubt you've also heard that she's profligate, impulsive, bull-headed and a bad influence on me. Am I right?" 

"How did you...?"

"Because I'd be a terrible detective if I didn't know what society is saying about my most infamous colleague. And because your father told me exactly the same thing, in those exact terms, when he warned me to turn her off of the Imperial Club case. I wasn't accustomed to ignoring George Sanderson's words at the time, but I'm damned glad I did, and I'm sorry, Rosie, but hindsight has proved me right. Phryne is _good_ at what she does, and taking her off of a case was always a sign that something was about to go terribly wrong."

"Fine, then, she's an excellent private detective. Make her a female constable, then. But you _married_ her."

"Do you really think I'd marry a woman I didn't love? And please don't use yourself as an example." A muscle in Jack's cheek jumped. "I never stopped loving you for a moment."

It was plain enough, from Rosie's behavior, that she felt the same. The nature of the love between them had changed drastically, but it was still there. "But does Miss Fisher feel the same?" she persisted. "I've heard tales of her from more than just my father, and everyone in Melbourne society knows that Phryne Fisher is a—"

"Don't. She is my wife, after all."

"...Of course," Rosie said, in a voice as tight as Jack's own. "But such a woman, Jack. The last thing I want for you is to be hurt even more. Do you really think she cares for you that much?"

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, picturing in his mind the look in Phryne's eyes as he slid the ring onto her finger. "I have known her long enough to realize, as has her family, that Miss Fisher would never have accepted a proposal of marriage from any man, let alone gone through the ceremony, unless she loved and trusted that man beyond all others." He coughed sharply to unseat the lump forming in his throat. "Whatever rumors are floating around about her, whatever society says about her... well, I won't say that most of them aren't true. Possibly some are even less outlandish than the truth. But we suit one another, Rosie. I couldn't ask for better than that."

His handkerchief had been reduced to a string of knots in her agitated hands, but she was listening to him. "Do you know," she admitted, after a moment or two of uncomfortable silence, "I was prepared to believe the worst of her from the very beginning? Not just because of what Father and society were saying, but because she seemed so determined to get in your way. I was... resentful of her. Not for replacing me – I couldn't begrudge you that, not when I accepted Sidney the day after the divorce was finalized. But for being to you what I couldn't be. For being someone you could rely on. It was obvious from the first time I saw you together," Rosie said, dabbing her eyes with the wadded-up square of linen, "that you two were a team."

"Admittedly, it seems to have been obvious to everyone but me. I resisted having anything to do with her, at first. And when that proved useless, I told myself it was strictly business. For a long time, it was. And when I realized that I cared for her more than I'd intended to, I tried to leave her behind." The image of a wrecked racing car flashed in his mind, and he reeled momentarily, remembering all too clearly the words he had said to Phryne, at the close of that case. "It was unbearable."

"Is... is that why you left Australia?"

"Yes. Rosie... I gave Miss Fisher my mother's ring."

Something in Rosie's face changed. "Does she know what that piece means to you?"

"She does. And she was honored to wear it." Jack leaned forward and gently retrieved his handkerchief from her clutches. He undid the knots and placed it back in her hands. "Rosie. You don't need to worry about me anymore."

She looked into his honest face, searching for something. Finally, she managed a smile. "It will be nice to have one less thing to worry about," she admitted, with a tired sigh.


	427. Wrinkled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did you enjoy yourself last night?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by michele02132.

Phryne went into the kitchen for a quick snack before bed and groaned. “Oh, for God’s sake, Mr. B! Leave my father’s things and go do bed! He can certainly wear wrinkled clothes for a day.”

Mr. Butler placidly went on with his ironing. “Actually, Miss, this is Inspector Robinson’s suit. After the night he’s had, a fresh set of clothes will be just the thing when he wakes in the morning.”

“I quite agree… are you just about finished? I’ll just pop upstairs and slip this into Jack’s room before I retire…”

*** 

Jack stirred, groaning slightly. The sun had wormed its way under his eyelids and reminded him of just how much his head still hurt. He raised a satin-clad arm to block out the sun… satin? He glanced down and realized with sudden dull surprise that he was dressed in blue Chinese-patterned satin pajamas, that he was being nearly smothered beneath a purple-and-gold jacquard coverlet and a fur blanket, and that there was a slim, warm, and very nearly bare body snuggled against him.

“Mmm…” Phryne yawned and smiled up at him. “Morning, Jack. How’s the head?”

“I, uh… Miss Fisher—”

“Surely after everything that happened last night, you can call me ‘Phryne’.”

Jack’s eyes widened in panic. “You mean—”

“I mean being assaulted by my father and his nerve tonic, of course.”

“Of course,” Jack said, going limp with relief.


	428. Delicious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Wasn’t expecting that.” (Sam/Bert) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

“Where to, mate?” Bert asked around his cigarette as the toff climbed into the cab.

“The Windsor Hotel.”

Bert raised an eyebrow but obligingly pulled into traffic. “Meetin’ the missus for lunch, are ya, Sam?”

Sam Elsworth’s grin was so bright, it damn near bounced off the rearview mirror and blinded Bert. “Meeting someone, but not for lunch.”

“Ain’t you the lucky bloke,” Bert teased. “What’s she like?”

“He. Delicious fella, blond, blue eyes, gorgeous hands – and his mouth, Bert.” Sam tongued his canine wickedly. “A real perfect cock-sucking mouth.”

Bert groaned, hardening painfully inside his trousers. “Right, that’ll so, Sam, you’re making me jealous.”

“And I haven’t even mentioned his arse—” 

“Sam!” The cab came to an abrupt stop outside the grand hotel. “Five shillings, and get out.”

Sam laughed and passed him the money, but made no move to leave the cab.

“Well? What’re you waitin’ for? You don’t want your ‘delicious fella’ t’ get lonesome.”

“Don’t I know it. Well? You coming, delicious?”

Bert blinked once or twice… and then _grinned _.__


	429. Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Love fiercely. Because this all ends.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by edeainfj.

They secured the house, checked on Mr. Butler, and sent Jane to her room with stern admonitions to lock her door and her window, though not before Phryne had hugged her ward – her daughter – very tightly. Finally, after Jack had coaxed Phryne into the parlour and pressed a double whisky into her hands, he ventured a few feet into the hall to telephone the Stanley house and tell Collins to bring Miss Williams home. “Everyone here is fine,” he assured his constable. “Just... very shaken.”

He set the receiver gently back in its cradle and returned to the parlour. Phryne was exactly as he had left her, hunched over her scotch, staring at nothing. Jack sank slowly to his knees in front of her. “I thought it was over,” she said. There was no colour in her face, and her hands were trembling. “I thought...”

Jack removed the tumbler from her fingers before she could spill it. “Everyone’s fine, Phryne,” he reminded her, closing his big hands over hers, stilling them. “Jane’s all right, Mr. Butler's – well, going to be all right, and Cec and Bert got clean away. No one was hurt tonight. And now we know for certain that it was him.”

Phryne was shaking her head, fumbling to grip his hands. “He wanted me to know, Jack. He found my home and my family and he wanted me to _know_.”

“To know what?”

“That he knows how to hurt me.”

It was so blunt, so raw, that for several awful seconds Jack fumbled to find words that could at least pretend to make it better. And then Phryne’s breathing changed, and he saw her transform, all in a moment. 

“I’m not going to let him do this to me.” The fingers that clasped his hands were tight, almost desperate, but the eyes that gazed into his were steady, calm, and determined. “Stay with me tonight, Jack. Be with me. In every possible way. He _can’t_ take that away from me. I want you to make love to me until I can’t feel anything else in the world, except you.”

Jack’s mouth was dry, but he managed half of a cheeky smile. “To remind you not to be afraid of shadows?” he asked, very huskily.

Phryne leaned forward and touched his face, and then, tenderly at first, kissed him. “You and I, together, we’ll make the shadows afraid of us.”


	430. Sidelong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sometimes I kinda hate you.” (Phryne/Bert) Requested by sheldonslog.

“It ain’t fair,” Bert complained, his words half-muffled by Phryne’s mouth. His legs automatically shifted to accommodate her, his arse clenched and his hips rose from the cab’s back seat to meet her as she speared herself on his cock, almost triumphantly. His big hands touched her without him having to think about it. “It ain’t, y’know.”

“What’s not fair?”

“How you do this t’ me… make me want you without even thinkin’. You say the word ‘Go’ an’ the rest of me _goes_.”

Phryne stopped at once, resting her hands on Bert’s shoulders. “Do you not want this?”

Bert’s sidelong grin was honest enough, if a little rueful. “Want it more than I care to admit. I jus’ hate not bein’ able t’ walk away, even if I wanted to.”

“…I can stop, Bert. I can walk away—”

He wrapped his hands around her hips, begging her to keep riding him. “Don’t you dare, Miss. Don’t you dare.”


	431. Time-Card

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by hello-beaniebeanie.

“ _Must_ you go?” Phryne wheedled playfully, lying on her back naked on the bed and letting her head hang down over the edge of the mattress. Jack was, after all, just as appealing when viewed from upside-down as right-side up. “Surely the station won't crumble and decay just because Jack Robinson is an hour or so late.”

“Unlike Ozymandias, I’m not that full of myself, but as I expect my men to show up on time, the least I can do is the same.”

“Ozymandias never had thighs like that, I bet.”

Jack smirked and picked up his clothes from where they had been thrown the night before. “A pity we didn’t think to let Mr. Butler in to take care of the clothing,” he said, grimacing a bit at his undergarments, which were now somewhat stiff and worse for wear.

“I keep telling you to leave a spare suit here.” Phryne chided. She sat up and rolled onto her belly, and reached out and nonchalantly wrapped her fingers around Jack's cock. “Otherwise, Jack, I’m afraid I do fear for your trousers.”

He swallowed hard. “And I fear for my time-card, Miss Fisher. Hands off.”

“Are you _sure_ , Jack? Because I can be quick…”

His resolve crumbled. “Then be quick,” he growled, and then groaned aloud as she took him in her mouth, engulfing the whole length of him in one smooth, practiced motion. He buried his fingers in Phryne’s hair, and forgot all about his time-card, and the station, and Ozymandias.


	432. Once A Week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I wait and ache. I think I have been healing.” (Sylvia Plath, ‘Three Women’) (Rosie) Requested by firesign23.

Once a week, she met Jack for dinner. Once a week she met Mac for drinks. She usually ended up going home with one of them, but she only ever slept with Mac. 

Once a week, she wrote to her oldest sister in England. Once a week she wrote to her middle sister in Carlisle. Victoria wrote back more often, though she lived on the other side of the planet and Phoebe only lived across town.

Once a week, she went to visit her father at the prison, because no one else would. Once a week, she steeled herself to walk through those doors, and to not run out like a madwoman when she left. 

Once a week, she had tea with Prudence Stanley, and always left money for Mary and her little boy. Once a week she bummed a smoke off of the red ragger cabbies that brought her there, who grinned and promised not to tell. 

Once a week she volunteered at the women’s hospital. Once a week she went to a dance hall near the air field. 

And once in a while, Rosie smiled.


	433. Resistance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry. I just can’t.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

The Germans had them pinned down, their guide, a hardened member of the French Resistance, told them bluntly. Her eyes spoke of decades of war. It was sometimes hard for Jack to remember that Yvette was only seventeen. 

“There is a way out – a possible way. I am going. But someone will need to give cover fire.” She glared at Phryne and Jack a long time, to make sure they understood. Jack’s rusty French had improved significantly in the past eight months. He understood. “One can come with me,” Yvette said. “Not the other.”

Jack and Phryne traded a silent look. Years of practice had taught them to communicate without words. There was no possibility of Yvette sacrificing herself for them; she was their liaison with the Resistance, not their bodyguard. Besides, she was young.

“Go,” said Phryne, picking up her rifle. “Go with her, Jack. Give my love to everyone at home.”

“Go and give it yourself,” he replied, unshouldering his own weapon and taking up his position beside her at the window. 

Yvette let out a snort of disgust. “You may both go to hell.”

Phryne and Jack grinned. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you ask: Yes, they make it out okay.


	434. Attentiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Licence my roving hands, and let them go,  
> Before, behind, between, above, below.” (John Donne) (Rosie/Mac) Requested by meldanya44.

“Stop it,” Rosie hissed half-heartedly, as Mac’s fingers casually trailed over her silk-covered knee and teased at the fabric of her skirt, already hiked up much too high for decency beneath the screen of the tablecloth. “You’re going to get us thrown out.”

“Would that be so bad?” Mac murmured out of the corner of her mouth, while her face showed only bland attentiveness to the speaker presiding over the charity luncheon. “I can think of much better ways to spend our afternoon…” Her hand slipped under Rosie’s skirt and palmed the bare warm skin of Rosie’s inner thigh, making her bite her lip, hard. 

It was a good thing that Rosie was also very schooled in how to control her face into a mask of bored politeness. A good thing, too, that all the other attendees were turned towards the speaker and paying all attention to him and none at all to Ms. Sanderson and her physician companion.


	435. Ambitious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did he just…” … “HE DID!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“This is not according to police procedure, Miss Fisher!”

“Don’t hiss and ‘Miss Fisher’ me, Jack, they’ll hear you. Shove over.”

“No.”

“She’s my client!”

“Fine, fine, have your turn at the keyhole. I never knew you were this much of a voyeur.”

“You don’t know the half of it… oh, that’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“She’s passing him something… I can’t tell what. Money or papers, something like that.”

“Maybe I should be investigating your client as well.”

“Mmm, probably. Oh, now they’re… oh my. Oh _my_.”

“What?”

“Now that is very ambitious of them…”

“What is? Let me see… oh sweet _Jesus_ —”

“Can we try that later?”

“No, we most certainly cannot. I’d be in hospital for a week.”


	436. Professional Interest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I have really played my cards wrong.” (Jack/Lyle) Requested by meldanya44.

Group-Captain Compton knew very well how to spin a pretty girl across the dance floor, but his heart was never in it. It was always for show, after all. Always to make others think that his interests lay where they were supposed to, rather than… where they did. And it worked flawlessly, every time: the eyes of the men watched him with envy for the girl he held in his arms, which was what he wanted.

All men save one.

_Damn it, Robinson,_ Lyle thought savagely, _can’t you see I’m not interested?_ As though saying it to himself in the privacy of his own thoughts would make it true, or make him wish he could hand the girl off to some airman and dance with Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson instead.

Jack continued to watch him with professional interest, leading Lyle to hope that it was official business that had brought Jack to the dance hall. But when the song ended, and Jack stepped up to request, in the most policeman-like of tones, that Lyle accompany him to the station to ‘assist with inquiries’, Lyle’s heart dropped into his boots. _No point in playing hard-to-get, then…_

They left the dance hall, got into Jack’s car, and drove. After about five minutes, Lyle sat up straight. “This isn’t the way to the station.”

“No,” Jack agreed. His hand slid across the seat and squeezed Lyle’s thigh, sending a jolt of electricity through the pilot’s body. “Would you rather go to the station?”

“No,” said Lyle, his head gone light with giddiness.


	437. Imagination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “No need for formalities.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal and lunalove-blr.

What would she have said, in that moment, Jack wondered, if he had cast his professionalism to the wind and climbed into the laundry chute with her, and closed the door behind him? It would have been awkward and challenging, but doubtless all the more exiting for that. And her invitation had left quite a lot open to the imagination… if he had pulled her, with difficulty, into his lap among the dirty laundry, would she have minded the location very much? Would she have minded, if they had groped their clothes apart enough for one frantic, glorious fuck in that cramped little cubbyhole?

He ought to have known what her answer would be.

Clearly, their investigations at the Grand were not yet complete.


	438. Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Careful with that razor, man.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

“Let me do that,” Jack murmured. 

Sam relinquished the razor and stood quietly before the mirror in his trousers and singlet, his face covered in lather. 

Jack’s bare chest was still wet from his bath, and soaked warmly through the back of Sam’s singlet as he pressed close. One hand came around to cradle Sam’s jaw, while the other gently and deftly passed the safety razor over Sam’s cheek. Jack’s breath was hot and damp on the back of Sam’s neck, and his lips were soft against the trembling muscles.

It was an unorthodox way to be shaved, Sam thought with a little smile, and closed his eyes blissfully.


	439. No Consequence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Where does a child hide in a small town like this?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

The town wasn’t much to look at, just a cluster of weather-beaten buildings along one unpaved street that would be dusty when dry and impossibly muddy when wet, the tiny sort of town that could be found anywhere in the world, of no consequence to anyone save its inhabitants. “Why on earth would the boy have come here?” Phryne wondered aloud, as they exited the car. “Has he ever been here before?”

“Never been outside the city limits in his life, as far as I know,” said Jack, rather grimly. “But this was the town in his note, and it’s all we have to go on.”

His big hands were balled tightly into fists, and his jaw was taut and hard. Phryne laid a careful, comforting hand on his arm. “Jack.”

“I failed my sister in everything else. I’m not going to fail in this. I’m not.”

It was a sentiment Phryne understood all too well. “I know. Let’s go find your nephew.”


	440. Namesake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How could I abandon my children?” (Bert) Requested by Teacherspet.
> 
> (Follows [Chapter 311: Snapshot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/14884318))

Bert took a long pull on his beer, to fortify himself. “How’s your mum?” he asked his son and namesake, who he hadn’t seen in fourteen years.

Al shrugged, and it was a gesture any of Bert’s friends would have recognized. “She’s awright. Took up with a fella in Adelaide about eight years ago. He’s treated us decent, made sure we went t’ school and all that.”

“Good, good… an’ your brother’n sister?”

“Jim’s in Sydney now, when he’s at home. Ran off t’ sea when he was fourteen. Been round the world twice. Annie’s a holy terror, though,” Al said, with a surprisingly approving grin (Bert’s own grin). “Gettin’ to be a real little handful.”

Bert’s smile was painful. The only time he’d ever see his daughter was in the photograph Susan had sent to the solicitor handling his divorce. “Listen, Al, I – if there’s anything I can do… I don’t wanna butt in where I ain’t wanted, and I know the other fella’s done all the work, but… well, tell your mum that I ain’t going to not offer t’ do what’s right by my kids.”

Al nodded, and reached into his jacket. “She dashed this off, when I said I was comin’ to find you.” He put the much-folded piece of paper into his father’s hands. “Said to promise not to read it, an’ that I’d give it to you, if I found you.”

Bert set the hard folded square on the bar, and stared at it for a moment or two. Then he ordered another beer.


	441. Creative

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We have to wrap our heads around this.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by meldanya44.

He got into bed that night, after being released from the hospital after weeks of recuperation, without even a moment’s wavering, and Phryne loved him all the more for it. _Aren’t you nervous?_ she wanted to ask. _Aren’t you scared?_ But they were questions she was asking of herself, not of him.

She had cried when the doctor told them the news. Jack had taken it philosophically. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to deal with this type of injury,” he reminded her. “During the war, and after… I know how to cope, Phryne.”

The doctor had coughed apologetically. “Inspector Robinson, I’m afraid your previous injury was not permanent.”

Jack had simply nodded. “I’m aware of that.”

He was resigned. But then, he had always been the less highly sexed of the two of them. “We’ll make this work,” she promised, meaning every word, but unsure of _how_ , precisely.

Jack though, had no doubts. “I’ve missed you,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms. The new scar tissue on his groin was slick against her thigh. “I have so many things I want to do with you…”

She wrapped her hands around his lean hips, and all her fears melted away. This wasn’t some casual lover, this was _Jack_. He had hands and he had imagination. Doubtless, there would be other issues to overcome, but with Jack…

“Do your worst, darling,” Phryne purred, “it’s been far too long since we had to be creative.”


	442. Rules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Are you serious?” (Bert/Jack/Phryne) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Rated E.

Phryne tangled her hands in Bert’s short blond hair and moaned into his mouth as he slowly slipped into her. He was similar to Jack in size but at the same time so _different_ , as every man was different (and she compared them all to Jack now, as though he was a universally accepted standard of measurement), but he filled her beautifully, and he was her favorite man now, next to Jack. “Bert, darling,” she murmured lovingly. She slid her hands down his back and took firm hold of his arse, squeezing and encouraging him to mold his body closer to hers. He moved his mouth to her neck, thrusting slowly. Her fingers inched over his buttocks and found his arsehole. She probed him lightly and he replied with a low, hitched groan. 

She stroked him with her fingertips, coaxing him open. In another moment, she felt Jack’s thick wet fingers join hers, and then his tongue. Bert cursed softly and without heat against her skin, rolling his hips gently, fucking Phryne with the forward surge and himself on their fingers as he pulled back. 

“Good, mate?” Jack murmured, nipping Bert’s buttock softly. 

“Good… Could be better.”

“Seriously?” Jack’s chuckle rumbled through Bert and into Phryne and made them both whimper in anticipation. Phryne dug her fingertips into Bert’s cheeks and spread him to make Jack’s entrance easier. 

“Christ,” Bert gasped, the air leaving his lungs in a rush. Phryne saw the brief spasm of discomfort pass over his face as Jack’s thick cock breached his arse, and the expression of deep, wordless pleasure settle on Jack’s face when he was fully seated inside his lover. “Damn, Robinson,” he laughed, a little shakily. “That never gets old. Feels good, mate— _oh!_ ” He shuddered forward with Jack’s first hard thrust, driving into Phryne and tearing a cry from her throat.

All talk died away, as Jack wrapped his big hands around Bert’s hips and with slow deep drags of his cock, fucked Bert and Phryne as one. All Bert could do was hang on, kissing Phryne and trying his best to please her with his hands and lips on her breasts and her throat. Phryne, who adored when Jack was in the mood to share, had no worries about finding her own pleasure. 

“You know the rules,” Jack growled playfully, echoing Phryne’s thoughts. “You don’t come until she does.” He was leaning over Bert, letting Bert feel his whole weight on his back, the whole length and width of his shaft inside him, making Bert pant for enough breath to moan. 

In another moment he had his arms under Bert’s biceps and was pulling him up onto his knees, giving Phryne an utterly beautiful vision of her two favorite men. She smiled broadly and toyed with one nipple, watching Bert loll his head back on Jack’s shoulder, giving Jack a broad strong neck to lave his tongue over while Bert gripped her hips for dear life. She watched Jack with one hand in Bert’s hair and the other holding hard to his thigh, watching their muscles ripple and strain against one another, watching Bert’s penis sheath in and out of her with each of Jack’s rapidly increasing thrusts. She splayed her fingers around his cock, rocking the heel of her hand against her clit. “Darlings, yes, so close…”

“Touch her, Albert,” Jack ordered, his teeth in Bert’s shoulder as he struggled to maintain control.

Phryne grabbed Bert’s hand and twisted his fingers to slip them inside her cunt alongside of his cock.

“Oh my _god_!” he sobbed, jerking out of Jack’s hands. He fell half-forward, rubbing desperately at Phryne’s clitoris, digging his forehead into her breastbone. “God, Robinson, right there, right there, _ohGOD—_ ”

“Her first,” Jack snarled, pistoning in and out of Bert’s arsehole. 

“Please Phryne pleasepleaseplease—”

“Bert, darling, almost—yes, yes, yes!” 

Phryne arched off the bed, her torso contorting and her pelvis bucking up sharply. Bert let out a keen and rocked hard against her, and she felt his cock contract inside her, and the sudden quick pressure of his cum shooting into her inner walls. 

And then abruptly there was no weight on her at all, as Jack pulled Bert to one side and rolled him onto his back. Phryne relaxed into a breathless afterglow and watched with pleasure as Jack hold Bert close, kissing him slowly and fucking him sweetly, listening to the gently vulgar things the two men murmured to each other. 

“Come inside me, Jack…”

“You want my spunk inside you? Dirty bastard…”

“Crooked cop.”

“Filthy commo… God.”

“God, Jack… feels good… feels so good…”

“Bert, Albert… God… _damn_ …” Jack trailed off, his eyes closing and the tendons of his neck tightening as he came. 

Phryne smiled contently. She knew that face well, and if Bert’s soft eyes and fingers on Jack’s face were any indication, he adored it as much as she did.


	443. Breach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Kiss me and you will see how important I am.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Their first kiss had been a diversion, nothing more. Jack didn’t like to think about it, though he did, often. It had been a shameful breach of trust, and that his mind often wandered to it in idle moments, he hated himself for. 

Phryne rarely dwelt upon it, but when she did, it was as the one flaring bright spot in a very dark set of days. Men who kissed her without permission did not escape unscathed, but Jack... Jack had always had permission, to pull her into his arms, cradle her head in one beautiful hand, and kiss her until the world around them disappeared.

And when they kissed for a second time, he knew it.


	444. Trepidation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It’s my favorite kind!” (Dot & Phryne) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“You’re welcome to try it, you know,” Phryne said, as Dot gingerly examined the device. “I find one never knows if such things are suitable until they’ve been _vigorously_ used. And thoroughly cleaned,” she added.

“Thank you, miss,” replied Dot, not very gratefully. “What are the little... things... for?”

“Different sensations, largely. And for various applications in different areas.” Phryne picked up one of the small rubber appliances and turned it over in her fingers. “This one’s my favorite. Simply divine. I know they don’t look like much, but _believe_ me, Dot—”

“I do, miss,” said Dot hastily. She set the device down with the care and trepidation she might use in handling a venomous snake. “And... the electricity? That doesn’t... frighten you?”

“Well, after this case, I’m definitely going to be checking the cord more carefully. But as to fear... well, if electricity really is going to explode the earth’s molten core, it’s welcome to start with me.”

Dot made a mental note not to mention this conversation in confession. It might give the priest a heart attack.


	445. Misspent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If you expect nothing from somebody you’re never disappointed.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“Good God!” Phryne gasped, letting her head fall back on the pillow. “That was unexpected!”

Jack raised his head from between her legs and lifted a solemn eyebrow. “Well, I’m glad I can still surprise _you_ , occasionally.” He crawled up her body and kissed her, and the way her flavour danced on their tongues pleased them both. “So, that, er… that worked for you? I am a little out of practice.”

“Jack, I can count on one hand the number of men who’ve done that for me without being asked, let alone who did it _properly_. You were marvelous.” She snuggled into the circle of his arms and quite deliberately put one of his big hands on her breast. She liked the weight of it there. “I take men to bed for the thrill of it, typically. If I get to orgasm without having to do it myself, that’s a very good evening, but it’s surprisingly rare.”

Jack made a disapproving little ‘tut-tut’ sound. “Shocking bad manners. Even in the course of my misspent youth, I learned that it is a gentleman’s duty to please his lady. After all, it’s only polite.”

Phryne snorted. “You had a misspent youth, Inspector? Doing what, refusing to finish your veggies at supper?”

He let out a low rumble, and squeezed her breast gently. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”

“I think you’ll have to, seeing as you’ve raised all my expectations…”


	446. Unspeakable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I think it’s time for a new hat.” (Rosie/Mac) Requested by meldanya44.

Mac left off kissing Rosie Sanderson for the third time and ran to retrieve her hat from the river. “This is becoming tedious,” she grumbled, though there was a glimmer of humour in her eyes that proved how little she minded. At least, how little she minded the increasingly water-logged state of her hat. “I came to this place for peace and quiet and the privacy in which to do unspeakable things with you, but with this damned wind, I can’t get any further than a snog.”

She looked down at Rosie, spread across the picnic blanket, smirking lazily at Mac and wearing nothing _but_ her hat, and grinned. “I suppose there’s something good to be said for hatpins, after all.”

The next time the wind lifted Mac’s hat and carried it down-river, Mac let it go. It was old, anyhow.


	447. Dire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Over my dead body.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

There were certain demands that one did not make lightly, especially of one’s most trusted partner in matters both professional and personal. Likewise, there were certain threats that one did not deploy to this same person, except in the most dire of circumstances.

With their backs to the wall, it was time for both.

“Go. Now. God damn you, go!”

“Over my dead body.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. It might come to that!”

“Not if I can help it.” A pistol cocked, and one shoulder pressed tightly against another as they both faced out together. “So let’s hope not.”


	448. Hostess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I love to make you smile.” (Phryne/Lili) Requested by sheldonslog.

“I have something for you,” Phryne whispered into Lili’s ear, during the hubbub in the hall. “Upstairs.”

Lili bit her lip to hide a grin. “It’s a bit early for that,” she whispered back.

Phryne’s eyes replied eloquently that it was _never_ too early or too late for _that_. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Lillian,” she murmured, and come upstairs.

They snuck away from the men just as soon as possible and hurried up to Phryne’s boudoir. With the door closed and away from prying eyes (not that their men minded at all, but guests were gossipy creatures), Phryne let down her spiritual mantel of Hostess and pulled Lili in for a long, close kiss.

“I’ve been waiting weeks for that,” Lili sighed, smiling as she toyed with the ends of Phryne’s inky hair. “Was that the surprise?”

“No, I do actually have something for you...” Phryne traced the curve of Lili’s upturned lips with the soft tips of her fingers. “But I’m well-paid in advance, it seems.”


	449. Inconstant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,  
> That monthly changes in her circled orb,  
> Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” (Shakespeare) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by ladygrayluvs.
> 
> Inspired by [this lovely piece of jewelry](http://mrsjohnsfarmhouse.tumblr.com/post/148688005323/eriebasin-1890s-victorian-stars-and-crescent).

There had been other things in Mary Maddison’s stash, other baubles and trinkets. With no way of tracking down the owners, most of the jewelry would have been left to tarnish and fade in an evidence box, especially the cheaper pieces, the costume jewelry, the things no one had missed and weren’t worth pawning, let alone making a fuss to the cops about.

It wasn’t unheard of for the young constables to rifle through old case boxes, looking for pretties for their girls. Jack and the other senior officers didn’t approve of the practice, of course... but they’d all done it, and sometimes still did. 

He’d known the moment he saw it that the little enameled swallow pin would have a home, once the case was closed, but there was another piece he took, a crescent moon ring set with a pearl and three diamond stars, and kept in the box on his bureau where is cuff links and tie-pins lived. He wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t really the sort of thing Phryne would wear. But nevertheless it reminded him of her. _The inconstant moon..._

He thought of the ring again as they stood on the lawn outside the observatory, looking up at the stars, and talked about responsibility and the universe. _I defy you, stars,_ he thought grimly, unwilling to give up, even as his romantic overture foundered on the shore of their murder investigation.

He had it in his pocket at Hugh and Dorothy's wedding, and at the airfield the next morning, and on the steamer to London. _Perhaps not so inconstant..._


	450. Chaste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is… really delicious.” (Jack/Concetta) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“I have no idea what I’ve just eaten,” Jack admitted, after a sumptuous meal of five different courses and three different wines, “but I’ve no complaints at all. That was amazing.” He smiled at his hostess – not the polite professional smile he’d perfected through years of practice, but the small secretive half-smile that concealed as much as it offered.

Concetta felt her heart flutter in spite of herself. “Well, it’s not as good as Papa Antonio’s cooking, but if you are content, Gianni, I am happy.”

“‘Content’ doesn't begin to cover it. I’m full to bursting.” Jack eyed the last little bit of his dessert, and shook his head regretfully. He just couldn’t do it; he had been roundly defeated. “Thank you. This was the finest birthday meal I’ve had in years.”

She wanted to ask why, to know why such a fine man would be so lonesome and companionless on his birthday as to come to a restaurant that was surely a reminder of nothing but a frustrating unsolved murder case. She wanted to ask about Gianni, to know about him... to know if there was any chance... “Well, as it is your birthday...”

Concetta held out her hands and, curious, Jack took them. She drew him to his feet and kissed him on the lips, not the passionate lover’s kiss she longed to give him and to receive in return, but not either the chaste semi-impersonal kiss of a family friend. A hearty, friendly salute, nothing more.

His high cheekbones were tinged with pink when she drew back, and his blue eyes shone. “That,” he rumbled softly, “was also the best birthday present I’ve gotten in a very long time.”


	451. Scattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, sometimes I think it is of no use to make friends. They only go out of your life after awhile and leave a hurt that is worse than the emptiness before they came.” (L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“What do you do when you’re not here, Jack?” Phryne asked, one night when they had sat drinking for far too long, alternating between yarning outrageously and sitting in companionable silence in her parlour. “I only ever seem to see you on a case or over a whisky.”

Jack smiled with a bit of sadness in his eyes. “I garden. I read before bed. I bicycle. That’s about it.”

“No!”

“Afraid so. I’m just a nondescript police officer, after all.”

She slid a glance at him along with another whisky. “If you’re nondescript, Inspector, then I’m a vestal virgin.”

Jack snorted violently into his drink. 

Phryne gave him a few minutes to collect himself. “What about family? Friends?”

He looked at her as keenly as the liquor would allow, trying to determine if her interest had some other motivation beyond mere curiosity. “Neither,” he said finally. “Family’s all dead or scattered. As to friends...” He rolled one shoulder in a tight little jerk of a shrug and then knocked back the rest of his drink. “Between the war, my job, and the end of my marriage, there’s really no one left. I’ve given up on the futility of making new ones. They just die, or decide I’m not worth the trouble anymore.”

_Oh dear,_ Phryne thought, grimacing internally, _you are **very** drunk._ But she felt for her pet police officer’s bitter resignation at his companionless state. She had been there often, herself. 

She rose from the chaise and went to him, taking the tumbler from his nerveless fingers, and brushing her lips briefly over his temple. “No point in wallowing in the past, Jack. There’s a whole world out there.”


	452. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What’s worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it.” (Tobias Butler/Osman Efendi) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.
> 
> Definitely one of the more intriguing pairings I've gotten for this project. ;)

When Tobias heard the name from Miss Fisher – _Osman... Osman Efendi_ – and that her cousin had killed him – _oh, **Osman**_ – he did as his training demanded of him. He maintained his composure, he showed neither the polite dismay of a loyal retainer nor the devastation that he truly felt. 

It was not a name he had ever anticipating hearing again, let alone under such awful circumstances. 

He no longer remembered how they had encountered one another, during the war – one infantry soldier, one sailor – fighting for what, at that point, they had no idea anymore. Tobias only remembered the loneliness of the city like a lingering bruise, the hole in his heart from being apart from Aurelia for so long... and Osman, his prince. 

There had been talk, nothing more, but there had been _hours_ of talk, ranging over all the universe and delving deep into the hidden corners of their own hearts, and it had strengthened one lonely Australian soldier enough for him to make it home. Tobias had loved Osman Efendi for ten years and more, for that one simple courtesy, and clung to the belief that although Aurelia was gone, Osman was still in the world, still giving others brilliant conversation, warm embraces, and hope. 

Tobias Butler polished silver and bled invisibly.


	453. Beg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I am not giving into you no matter how cute I think you are.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“Jack!”

“No.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Dare what?”

“Make me beg.”

“Couldn’t if I tried,” replied Jack glibly. “And even if I could – beg all you want, Miss Fisher, the answer is still ‘no’. You cannot work this case with me, officially or otherwise. I have my orders.”

Phryne got round him and stopped him with a hand pressed flat to his chest. “And how often do you follow those?” she asked, only half-jokingly.

Jack looked at her and refused to sigh, though it was a trial. “Less often than I should, since I met you,” he said frankly. 

“Well, you can’t say it hasn’t been fun. Or that it hasn’t been to your advantage.” She smiled a bit then, and casually worked her finger underneath his tie. “And we _have_ had fun, haven’t we, Jack…”

“We have.” Damn her, she always managed to bring out the devil in him.

“And you know, you don’t have to _give_ me the files. I could always discreetly burgle your house.”

“You could, but I haven’t got them. The Superintendent does, and if you try to burgle his house, I won’t be the one to have the privilege of arresting you.”

Jack grinned at her sudden crestfallen expression and kissed her on the forehead. It wouldn’t stop her, he knew, but it was nice to have gotten the upper hand for once, if only briefly.


	454. Contingency Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “That’s not what I heard.” (Mac & Phryne) Requested by Anonymous.

“There’s one thing you haven’t mentioned,” Mac pointed out, after the inspector (very decent, if clearly a stick-in-the-mud) and his constable (utterly wet behind the ears and rather a puppy) had gone back to their dreary station, the two commos had gone back to their cab, and Dottie Williams had been dispatched with them for an informative visit to her mother. 

Phryne looked up from her perusal of house listings. “What’s that?”

Mac’s face was solemn. “Lydia Andrews.”

A shadow seemed to pass behind Phryne’s eyes. “Detective-Inspector Robinson seems to think she’s still in Melbourne, or at least in the country. He’s put a watch on all the ports.” She looked at her oldest friend critically. “You don’t believe that.”

“No. That sort of person always has a contingency plan, you know, and she sounds far too intelligent and calculating to have waited around to witness your demise like a villain in an old melodrama. And… one hears things, working in free clinics.” Mac poured herself more champagne. “There’s talk among the dope fiends that the King of Snow is on ‘his’ way to Egypt.”

“Is that so…”

“You might put that new plaything of yours on the case.”

Phryne snorted. “What, Sasha? He doesn’t like me _that_ much.”

“I meant Robinson.”

“He’s not – oh, don’t give me that look! … You think he doesn’t already know?”

“He may have heard. But not many policemen are going to put much stock in the ramblings of a few cocaine-addled diggers.”

“True… perhaps we’ll pursue this line of investigation on our own, you and I…”


	455. Allowances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There's still another act!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by meldanya44.
> 
> Rated E ~~for Evil~~. ;)

In the seat on her left, Jack growled. “What’s the hold-up?”

Phryne allowed him that. It had been her mother’s idea for them all to attend Bart Tarrant’s newest production, and Jack’s opinions on Gilbert and Sullivan being what they were, she supposed he was permitted some annoyance at the delay in getting on with the damned show. Especially as it was now well past time for the second act to begin, and Lady Margaret was nowhere to be found. 

“Excuse me just a moment, Jack,” she said, and rose and went out into the corridor. Within minutes she returned to their box (casting aside the curtains with a flourish and pulling them closed with the same) and re-seated herself – not in her own velvet-covered chair, but in Jack’s lap. “Apparently the first violinist has failed to return to the pit.”

Jack swallowed. “How very inconsiderate of him,” he managed, recognizing the look in Phryne’s eyes. He was a grown man and entirely capable of not reacting when a woman, particularly _this_ woman and particularly given the event of the last year or so, intruded on his person in this manner, but when she looked at him like _that_... “Do you think we have time?”

Phryne wrapped her arms around Jack’s neck and kissed him hard, her hands pressed flat against the back of his skull. 

In one practiced motion, Jack clasped her firmly around the waist with one arm and leaned forward out of his chair, bracing them against the impact of the floor with the other. Her silver-beaded skirt went up and the fly of his black dress trousers was unbuttoned, also with an altogether too-practiced hand. “We’re getting much too good at this sort of thing,” he rumbled, his voice warm and urgent beside Phryne’s ear. He touched her mound and found her dripping, and wondered if she simply _existed_ in this perpetual state of aroused readiness. It seemed that way, at times... She wrapped her fingers around his cock, stroking him deftly, and he bit back a moan. Better to be silent than to whisper. 

Phryne rolled her hips up to take him inside her, and rolled her lips together to hold in the cry she wanted to shout to the gilded ceiling when he took her with one solid, not-entirely-accurate thrust. But he righted himself quickly and did them both credit, and after all, a theatre box is not a suite at the Windsor. Allowances had to be made.

They were back in their seats, an indecently short time later, when their missing guest rejoined them. “So sorry to be late,” Lady Margaret apologized cheerfully. “I was shamefully delayed by an old friend at the bar.”

She dropped into her chair with a grin at her daughter that made Phryne’s eyebrows go up and Jack suddenly find renewed interest in the orchestra pit. “I think Tarrant’s found his missing violinist,” he said. 

“None the worse for wear, I hope,” Phryne commented dryly, her knowing eyes still on her mother.


	456. Bedraggled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want to have a baby.” (Jack/Bert) Requested by firesign23.

The rain woke Jack up, and after listening groggily to the storm for a few seconds, he smiled. It was just the sort of night that made Jack grateful that he had risen past the rank of constable, because he did not feel like subjecting his aging bones to the sheeting rain and chill that was assaulting Melbourne at that moment. He turned over in his bed, sighing contentedly at the occasional bounties of life, and prepared to go back to sleep.

An explosion of knocking at his front door suddenly sent him hurtling out of bed, the sheets tangling around his pyjama-clad legs. Still half-asleep, it was all Jack could do to not shout “Barrage! Heads down!” and start hunting for his helmet. Then the flurry of knocks came again, waking him up completely, and shame washed over him. He loathed how helpless he felt, when the trenches came back to him like that... 

He hauled himself off the floor and grabbed his dressing-gown. Thrusting his arms into the sleeves, he padded barefoot to his front door, resisting the impulse to grab a cricket bat from the closet or a decorative paperweight from the mantelpiece. Anyone who was purposefully making that much of a racket in the middle of the night, he felt, as he pressed the button for the porch light and drew back the bolt, was either genuinely in need of help or else was the world’s worst burglar.

Jack peered blearily into the bedraggled face illuminated by the yellow light. “Albert? What in the hell...?”

“Sorry, Inspector, but I didn’t know where else t’ go. Can, uh... can I come in?”

Jack stepped back to let Bert enter. The sopping wet digger came inside and stopped on the mat, dripping and forlorn, and while Jack closed and rebolted the door, he simply stood there. 

Gingerly, Jack removed the soaked hat from Bert’s head. In spite of the rain and the cold, it was very clear that Bert had had a shock. His face was white, and his eyes looked like he had been crying. “What’s happened?”

“Got a letter from Tatiana t’day. Took a while fer it t’ get here from Tasmania. Said... said she’s pregnant.”

Jack blinked once or twice, then dropped his face into his hand and swore softly. “C’mon, mate,” he said, taking Bert by the arm. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”


	457. Purgatory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Come sit with me?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

Hospital waiting rooms were tiny hells on earth, Phryne decided. Or, no, what was the place... Catholics... Purgatory, that was it. Hospital waiting rooms were tiny purgatories on earth. She tried not to look at poor Hugh’s stricken face, or at Dottie’s mother, rocking in a corner and chanting endless rosaries. Mrs. Collins - that is, Hugh’s mother - was not present, though by her own choice or by request, Phryne didn’t know. 

Jack caught her hand as she paced by him for the five hundredth time. “You’re going to wear a track in the lino,” he chided her. Phryne looked down blankly, seeing him but for a second not recognizing him. He was as exhausted as everyone else; even his shirt collar looked tired, and there was a day’s growth of beard on his cheeks, something he simply never allowed. There were gray hairs in the tiny stubble, and her heart faltered. He saw the change and tugged her down to sit beside him. 

She leaned against him gratefully, wanting to pour out her fears and her worries to him as she could to no other person in the world. She wanted to tell him how terrified she was of childbirth – not in herself, but in other people – that Dottie might not survive this first experience of labour. She wanted to cry again over how, as a child, she had been her mother’s sole midwife, and how she could still hear the anguished cries of labour and then of loss. She wanted to commiserate with him, who had suffered similar pains in his childhood, and comfort him in return – he and Rosie had lost their only child to premature birth, and Phryne could only conclude that this ordeal was torture for him. She wanted... she wanted to crawl away into a dark hole, and curl into a ball and never come out. 

Jack’s arm around her shoulders was solid and real. 

After a moment, Hugh got up and sat on her other side. “I – I’m so scared, Miss.”

With an effort, Phryne sat up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Everything will be _fine_ , Hugh. I know it.”


	458. Adored

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Who’s to say they don’t?” (Mr. Butler) Requested by blackkitty9.

Dot returned to the kitchen after watering the plants in the dining room to find Bert and Cec pouring over a small photograph album. “Cute as a button, ain’t she?” Bert was saying. 

“Family photos, Bert?”

“Must be.” Teacup in one hand, he turned the album round to show Dot. It was opened to a picture of a lovely little girl with long fair hair, about three years old. 

“She’s adorable,” Dot smiled. “Who is she?”

Bert and Cec traded a glance. “Actually, Dottie, we thought this was yours,” said Cec, genuinely apologetic. “Thought maybe it was one of your nieces.”

“No. I wonder – oh, I wonder if it’s Mr. Butler’s...”

“Nah, couldn’t be. The old duffer’s never had any kids.”

Dot was affronted on Mr. Butler’s behalf. “You don't know that.”

“He never talks about ‘em.”

“He was married for a long time, Bert, I’m sure he... has some relations. Besides,” she continued, “you never talk about _your_ family.”

She took some unchristian satisfaction from the mulish look Bert got at that. He drank off his tea in a hurry. “C’mon, Cec, we got work t’ do.”

Cec tugged his cap at Dot and grinned, and the two men went out. 

Dot shook her head and moved to close the photograph album, planning to put it in Mr. Butler’s room where it wouldn’t get dirtied with kitchen messes. Then she paused, and carefully slipped the picture of the little girl out of its tabs, and turned it over. 

_“To her adored Grandpapa Tobias. Aurelia Louise Butler, aged 3, on her birthday. Taken by father Allen, 1929.”_


	459. Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I told him that he’d better go  
> Cause I was crazy and impossible,  
> That my love was broken, my dreams had run off wild.  
> But patient as the easy rain,  
> He never turned away,  
> Calling, ‘Hey sweet woman, you know you’re not a child.’” (Tift Merritt) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by jasbeaux.

"I'd meant to tell you not to come."

"Hmm?"

"That day, at the airfield. When I saw you... Before I saw you, I'd planned to send you a telegram from Sydney, telling you to get on with your life, and..."

"And?"

"And see if it wasn't better without me in it. I've made an awful lot of trouble for you, and that's not likely to change."

"No, no it is not."

"Damn you, don't smirk at me like that."

"I don't recall ever receiving that telegram. In fact, when I saw you at the airfield, you told me something quite different."

"I practically _ordered_ you to follow me."

"You did. And for once, I obeyed. I would have come, regardless."

"Why?"

"Because I enjoy trouble."


	460. Fizz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is why you don’t ever have any shirts to wear.” (Bert/Sam Elsworth/Lili Elsworth) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

"C'mon, in here," Bert urged. "This'll do just fine."

The Elsworths followed him, glancing at one another and stifling their laughter. "Bert, honey," Lil pointed out, giggling, "this is a potting shed."

"And you're potted," Sam added, reaching out a fond hand to steady Bert as he stumbled. "Too much fizz, again. Face it, Johnson, you can pound back ten pints with no trouble, but you just can't handle champagne."

"Says you."

"Yes, every time we come to one of Raymond's parties," Lili said, rolling her eyes and looking for the quickest way through the garden out to where the cars were parked.

"Ah, yer a coupla wet blankets. C'mere, handsome, an' I'll show you if I'm drunk'r not."

Sam side-stepped Bert's clumsy lurch and let him fall flat on his face. There was a tearing sound. "Damn it, not again! This is me good shirt!"

Lili bent down briefly to brush a kiss across his forehead. "You'll either learn, one of these day, or else you'll run out of shirts. Which would be bad for business but a definite plus for Sam and me."


	461. Forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Phryne met Jack as he was coming out of the courthouse. “How did it go?” She started to ask, but the look on his face stopped her.

“Take me home, Phryne,” he said, sitting down limply in the passenger seat of her car.

She drove off, wondering which ‘home’ he meant and how she was to know. Finally, taking him at his oft-expressed word that home was wherever she was, she brought him to Wardlow.

“A bath please, Mr. Butler,” she ordered as soon as she got inside, “in my room.”

Jack made no protest, only hung up his coat and hat in the usual place. His just-culminated case has been unusually grisly, but they hadn’t worked it together, so Phryne had no clear idea of what specifically was weighing on him.

She brought him whisky. He looked at the tumbler for a moment, then took it and knocked it back, and then leaned forward and rested his forehead on her shoulder. “The parents had to hear the coroner’s report today. I hate these cases,” he sighed. “I just... fucking hate them.”

Phryne carded the fingers of one hand gently through his hair. “There’s hot water upstairs, and supper, when you’re ready for it. Come try to forget, for a little while.”

He looked up at that. Their eyes met, perfectly understanding that there could be no permanent forgetting. He managed a ghost of his usual half-smile. “Must keep trying,” he said, and kissed her cheek.


	462. Sensibilities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “No, wait, not there. _There_.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Is this the spot?” Jack asked, speaking quietly so that he wouldn’t further disturb the sensibilities of the staid old ladies at Mrs. Stanley’s party. They were already quite scandalized enough that Jack had shown up with a woman on either arm (one the woman he’d recently remarried, the other the niece of their host), _and_ that one of them was so great with child that she looked about to pop inside her exquisite blue velvet.

His thumbs pressed a little more firmly on either side of Rosie’s spine.

She clamped her lips together on a shout of relief that would have been utterly indecent. “Yes, Jack, perfect. Oh, that’s heaven.”

He chuckled. “You’re lucky it wasn’t a bigger knot, otherwise it would’ve been hell. I think you need a better chair at the office.”

“Too right. Maybe I’ll steal yours.”

“Don’t you dare or I’ll have you hauled in on burglary charges.”

“That’d be a field day for the papers,” Rosie teased. “‘Respected Senior Inspector Arrests Pregnant Wife.’” She tugged him down for a kiss. “Thank you, darling. Now go dance with Phryne before she murders that gossip columnist.”

“It’d be justifiable homicide...”

“Ugh, you’re a wretch, Jack. I’m not visiting either of you in prison.”

Jack gave his wife a quick and devilish grin and went to rescue his partner.


	463. Revolutionary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I have a bad feeling about this…” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by medeaofcolchis.
> 
> Picking up from a number of other chapters, beginning with [Chapter 80: Involved](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/11367721).

It was after a hard day of romping on the floor with Ian and Teddy, and after Teddy had nursed and been put to bed, and after Ian had been taken home by Mac, yawning and protesting the entire way, that Jack finally brought up the subject of his mother. “She’s not a fool, you know,” he pointed out apologetically. “We weren’t able to keep your pregnancy out of the papers entirely, and we’ve never been able to stop them linking us up together.”

Phryne sighed and refilled her teacup. “God, how I miss whisky. Jack, I’ve no objections to telling your mother that she has a grandson with the surname of Fisher. It’s the one surnamed MacMillan that I worry about. I don’t want Teddy to have that relationship if it means Ian is going to be shut out of it.”

Jack was silent for a very long time, while his long fingers fiddled with the Masonic emblem on his watch chain. “To tell the plain truth,” he said at last, “knowing my mother, I don’t think she’ll object to either of the boys.”

“Just me and Mac?”

“No. Just you.”

Phryne's eyebrows climbed into her hairline. “You’re... you’re serious. You think your mother will have fewer problems with the lesbian doctor with revolutionary tendencies than with me.”

Jack nodded warily.

“Well, that caps it. Now I simply _have_ to meet her!”


	464. Gun-Shy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I never said that.” (Mac/Rosie) Requested by mollidraws.

“So what shall we do tonight?” Mac turned from the sideboard and smiled at Rosie, who was sitting on the sofa with her stockinged feet tucked up under her. “There’s a good jazz band over at the Hop-Frog, or we could look in on the Adventurer’s Club Annual Darts Match… and I think there’s a production of _Twelfth Night_ we could see…” She trailed off uncertainly, seeing no hint of interest on Rosie’s face. “Or we can stay in. Again.”

“Would you mind very much?”

Mac took a sip of her whisky, hoping it would steady her nerves. “Do you not want to be seen in public with me?”

Rosie sat up abruptly. “Put that thought right out of your head,” she said, and went to Mac and kissed her. “I never said such a thing, and I never will.”

“Then why haven’t you wanted to do anything with me since we moved in together?”

“Oh, Beth, I’ve wanted to do _plenty_. But I’ve never had to work for my living before, and I’m tired in the evenings.” She wrapped her arms around Mac’s waist. “I adore going out on the town with you, even if I can’t kiss you on the corner, every five minutes, the way I want to. But I’m just as happy to stay in and cuddle on the sofa with you.” She kissed Mac’s cheek gently. “You don’t need to keep doubting me, Beth. I’m not going anywhere.”

“No. I know. Still a bit gun-shy, I suppose.” Mac rested her cheek on Rosie’s glossy brown curls. A quiet night in wasn’t so bad, she mused, and she could get an exchange on the _Twelfth Night_ tickets.


	465. Flirting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You make me want to expand my vocabulary.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by meldanya44.

He’d done it. He’d come after her. But instead of finding her at her flat or giving her his address in London, he had sent a dinner invitation. At Ferrara’s, no less. 

However he’d gotten to England, Phryne reflected, as she dressed, he must have had room to pack his tuxedo. 

He received her at Ferrara’s with the same surprising stately confidence he’d displayed at the grand. “Hallo, Jack,” Phryne smiled, aware of all the eyes on them, and held out her hand.

He took it and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss it, but instead he turned her hand palm-up and smoothly bowed over it. “‘From which stars have we fallen to meet each other here?’” he murmured, ghosting his warm breath across her palm.

“ _My_ , Jack Robinson. This is an entirely new level of flirting for you.”

“I beg your parson, Miss Fisher. I do not ‘flirt.’ I _woo_.” His lips, his clever delicious lips, spoke the word quite deliberately, with a quirk of his eyebrows that promised much.

“Is that so?” Phryne felt in danger of leaping out of her skin. Her blood soared. “And is this how you woo all of your young ladies?”

“Hmm. Most of them.” Jack pulled out her chair for her. “But I’ve made an extra-special effort for you.”


	466. Struggle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How do you engineer it?” (Bert/Cec) Requested by phrynefisherismyrolemodel.

Cec’s arms shook with the effort, and finally he had to let Bert drop. “It’s no good, mate,” he gasped. “Me arms are like limp rags, an’ I don’t trust that wall. Can’t we just use the floor like a coupla normal buggers?”

“Hell no,” Bert grumbled, “I ain’t puttin’ my bare arse on this filthy floor, no matter how much I want t’ get off.”

“You could always get on yer knees,” Cec replied.

“I ain’t a bloody sheep.”

“Look, mate, it’s either that or you’ll just hafta wait until we find some place with a proper bed.”

The struggle of making the decision warred on Bert’s face. He _wanted_ Cec, but the abandoned barn was cold and full of old muck, without a discarded horse blanket to be found. And he disliked being fucked from behind on principle. But if they waited until they found a bed, there would be people around, and they couldn’t risk that...

“Just try not t’ go too fast,” he sighed balling his army greatcoat into a pad for his knees. “Yer too thick for that.”

“No worries, mate.” Cec slicked his cock again, trying not to think about what he was using for lubricant, and knelt behind Bert, dropping a kiss on the small of his back. “I know how you like it.”


	467. Reprobate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what your hands do when you're kissing  
> Your number one and number two favorite positions  
> I know how your skin glistens, listen  
> I know where you go with your beautiful friends  
> I know what you taste like when the night ends (Adam Cohen, “What Other Guy”) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

There were three things that Phryne could always count on happening to Jack, when she corralled him into playing her escort at some party or other.

First, he would invariably be cornered by any number of society matrons or lady reporters, who would breathlessly interrogate him about his relationship with The Honourable Phryne Fisher, and who tended to use words like 'scandalous,' 'shocking,' or other words to that effect.

Second, at some point early in the evening, she would be whisked away by some dashing young reprobate or other -- lately the culprits had been Lord Blashfield's second son and one of the new pilots from the Flying Corps -- and poor Jack would have to amuse himself with whisky-and-sodas and whatever conversation he could snag, while Phryne was whirled and twirled and otherwise gyrated across the dance floor.

Thirdly, and most importantly, when the last dance of the night was called, she would always, always, divest herself of whatever sundry admirers she had acquired during the course of the party, and make a beeline for Jack.

It was the entire reason, as she knew quite well, that he consented (with only a minimum of complaint, usually) to go with her to these bean-feasts, so that he could have that one moment at the end of the night when she had eyes only for him. When he could take her into his arms and feel her body against his, smell the remnants of her perfume, and glide her slowly and gracefully over the dance floor until the final notes faded away and Jack could steal a small, sweet kiss and tastes the last of the champagne on her lips.


	468. Prurient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I am an artist, and have many colours on my palette.” (Phryne/Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

When she introduced Jack to Sam Elsworth, Phryne had to admit, her initial thought had been for her own mischievous interests. She enjoyed keeping Jack on his toes, and there were few people who were so perfectly made to push all of his various repressed buttons than Sam. And then when Jack had made his awkward, halting confessions, she had been concerned for him, then protective, and then, when she was sure Sam would treat him well, she had allowed herself a good measure of prurient enjoyment.

Now, as she pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and watched Sam paint imaginary pictures over a sleeping Jack's chest, she saw the myriad of brightly coloured possibilities before them. And she smiled.


	469. Outré

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Pain is so close to pleasure…” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

As delicately as she could, Phryne eased the bandages away from Jack's abraded wrists. In spite of her care, he couldn't hold back a wince, but he tried to grin away the pain.

"I suppose you'll tell me you've seen worse?"

"Well, I have," Phryne admitted, gently cleaning the most minor of the wounds that Jack had taken away from three days of captivity, "but unlike you, those gentlemen knew what they were signing up for." 

At Jack's vaguely worried look, she clarified. "I have one or two friends who work in... establishments... that cater to men with more... outré tastes in the boudoir."

"Ah," Jack said gruffly. "That is outside my realm of interest. I don't think I'd care to associate pain with..."

"Not this kind of pain. No." Phryne anointed the cuts (Jack didn't even try to hold back this time) and rebandaged his wrists with deft fingers. "But other kinds... more skillfully administered... and other gentler sorts of bonds... they have their place."

By the time she was finished, Jack's pulse was racing, and not from pain, either. "Damn you, Miss Fisher, and your ability to make _anything_ erotic."


	470. Giveaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I wanna tease you ‘til you’re begging me,/And you’re on your knees and it’s hard to breathe…” (Hugh/Dottie) Requested by jasbeaux.

"Dottie?"

"Hmm?"

Hugh hesitated for a second or two, wanting to ask but equally unsure if he wanted an answer. "Why does Miss Fisher have so many different kinds of handcuffs?"

"To practice getting out of, of course," replied Dot promptly. But she was blushing. And very red, too, if Hugh was any judge. Dark as it was in their bedroom, the sudden rise in temperature next to his cheek was a dead giveaway, as he'd thought.

"What... what does -- I mean, _how_ does it..." Hugh trailed off and dragged a hand through his tousled hair. "Doesn't seem too much fun to _not_ get to touch the person you're in bed with."

"Well, it's good enough for Miss Fisher. She knows more than--well, she knows what she's doing," Dot said, as though that ended the argument. 

He ought to have known better by now. He ought not to have been shocked when, the next evening, he found himself naked and neatly cuffed to his own bed (and not with regulation cuffs, either). And he ought not to have been at all surprised that, thanks to Miss Fisher, Dot also knew damned well what she was doing.


	471. Semi-Plausible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Quick, hide behind the sofa!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

For once (to her surprise and amusement), the potentially compromising and unquestionably uncomfortable hiding place was _not_ Phryne’s fault. They had been minding their own business, canoodling like a most respectable modern couple, when they had both heard the approach of footsteps, and the unmistakable tones of Aunt Prudence. Phryne had made half a motion towards extricating herself, her mind already racing towards a semi-plausible excuse, but Jack had other ideas.

“Up and over,” he whispered, with a grin that the devil himself might have envied. And Phryne had some experience of the devil. She knew that a grin like that simply could _not_ be ignored.

And she knew of some interesting things that could be done behind a sofa.


	472. Overture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.” (Phryne /& Mac) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

If Phryne was entirely frank with herself, and she practically almost was, _("I've never thought of you that way, but... it could be fun.")_ she had to admit that her appreciation for classical music _("That's hardly fair." "What?" "You, playing me like a piano." "I've had some good teachers.")_ extended as far over the dance floor as needed _("I hate to say it... but I think this dance may have gone on for too long." "You never did have any patience.")_ to get to where the band sat. Her preference was for short and sweet. Anything longer, well... 

_"We could do great things together." "And we will. Together. But not like this."_

She rarely made it past the overture.


	473. Flying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,  
> Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.  
> (William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 128”) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by cowalyn.

"Hello, Jack," Phryne said, her voice as clipped as her freshly-dressed hair.

He looked up from his paperwork with some alarm. Now that was a tone of voice he hadn't heard in quite some time. "Yes, Miss Fisher? Something I can help you with?"

She closed his office door smartly and dropped into her usual chair with a casualness that had him on guard. Her eyes were glittering. She wasn't angry, precisely... "I found some rather interesting documents today."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You left them in my library last night. Stuffed inside a book."

Jack frowned. He had brought Phryne some books from his library the night before, books that she had expressed interest in and that he was willing to either loan or part with entirely. But he wasn't in the habit of leaving random important papers in between the covers of barely-loved tomes. "Which book?"

"The Century Book of Gardening." She watched his facial expressions closely. "I didn't even ask for that book, Jack," she added, with a smirk. 

His smile spread slowly across his face. She wasn't angry. She was _interested _. "No, but Mr. Butler did. So you found the letters."__

__Phryne leaned forward, almost salaciously eager. "Who is she, Jack? Who were you writing naughty letters to while I was away being a dutiful daughter?"_ _

__"Do I really have to spell it out for you?"_ _

__"Surely those weren't for _me_."_ _

__"And if they were?"_ _

__"Jack. Why didn't you _mail_ them? Delicacy? Shame? Just couldn't bring yourself to pay for the postage?" Phryne rose and re-seated herself on the edge of Jack's desk, her silk-stockinged calves pressing against the insides of his thighs. "I would have flown home without the plane to make even one of those tender missives come true."_ _

__He looked up at her with mock-sternness. His formerly wide smile had gone back into hiding in the corners of his mouth. "As I've missed my chance for that, may I do my best to make you fly now?"_ _

__Phryne tugged at her lower lip temptingly. "Oh, Jack," she purred. "And I thought you were afraid of... flying."_ _


	474. Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.” (Thomas Carlyle) (Phryne/Rosie) For moocowmoocow, who asked for ‘bullets & bracelets’.

At the very least, no one could say that Rosie Sanderson (formerly Robinson, nearly Fletcher) was taking her troubles lying down. Since the scandal, she had been seen _more_ about town, not less, and in the company of, of all people, Miss Phryne Fisher. 

"People will talk no matter what you do," Phryne had pointed out astutely, and with a dryness that said much about her own experiences in that quarter. "It's better to give them something to talk about, rather than leave them to their own imaginations."

So they gadded about like debutantes, these two women nearing or past forty, and shocked people. Rosie learned to drive fast, to fly, how to wear real jewels on her wrists instead of paste ones, how to shoot, how to run down a filthy alley off Little Lonsdale Street at two in the morning in high heels without tripping and breaking her neck, how walk past staring eyes with real nonchalance instead of only the mask of it. They ventured into opium dens, sly grog shops, brothels, speakeasies, gambling houses, picture show, sometimes for a case but mostly just for the thrill of it.

And it _was_ thrilling, all of it, whether Rosie was kissing Phryne in a posh hotel bed or reloading her pistol on the run. Thrilling and not respectable and deeply rewarding, enough to make Rosie giddy at least twice a day, as though she was being reborn.


	475. Blooming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Spread my body like a map  
> Mark your territories with kisses,  
> And claim them with your teeth.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by thehonorablemrsmccarthy.

Phryne Fisher lay on her back in the vast hotel bed, idly tracing her fingertips over her breasts, where Jack’s lips had so recently lingered. 

‘Mark me,’ she had told him, and by God he had done his duty. Her breasts, her throat, her backside, the insides of her thighs... Each blooming red mark was a reminder of him, exactly as she wanted. And when they began to stiffen and sore into bruises, she would feel him still, even if he was miles away. 

And no matter the miles, he would come back to her. He had certainly left signposts to point the way back.


	476. Quiet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You made this?” (Jack/Concetta) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Their relationship, such as it was, whatever it happened to be at any given moment, was based upon food. Or perhaps more accurately, upon hunger. Between his bottomless appetite and her skillful ways and attention to others’ needs, it could hardly be anything else.

She cooked, he ate what she brought. She brought wine, he drank it. She gave her time and her sympathy and he took them, gladly. She offered herself and he accepted... for a time. She desired to be needed; he needed to be cared for. 

They were not proud of these traits, knew it was dangerous for them to be so indulged. In the quiet places of their hearts, they could see it would never make a true marriage. There would be love, companionship, and equal division of duties, without them ever being equals. And that was not what they needed.

She offered herself, completely, and just as completely, rescinded the offer. And both of them knew it was right. But in the quiet places of their hearts, sometimes... they wondered.


	477. Crimson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You have witchcraft in your lips.” (William Shakespeare) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by edeainfj.

More often than he cared to admit, Jack found himself thinking of Miss Fisher. Her eyes, her interference, her perfume, her hair. The way she blithely bewitched the law (and law enforcement) into bending in order to help those whom the law would not bend for of its own accord. Her smile. Ye gods, her smile, like a streak of crimson slashing through the drab gray routine of his life. 

Always, when Jack found his mind wandering to that smile, he would shake himself and try to concentrate again on his paperwork or his garden or his book. And always, a little touch of crimson crept back into his thoughts, as though to remind him that she was not letting him go anytime soon.


	478. An Arrangement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don't say it’s a good plan—I think it’s a rotten plan. But there it is.” (Jack/Bert) Requested by meldanya44. 
> 
> Meldanya realized that I tend to write J/B solely from Bert's perspective. So I'm going to try and remedy that. ;)
> 
> ...Also, I may have misunderstood her instructions.

Bert wasn’t sure how he’d ended up sitting on the inspector’s desk, with Robinson standing in front of him and looking like he wanted to... what? 

“You’ve got a wife,” Bert said, his voice gone raspy. “An’ Miss Fisher’s got ‘er eye on you.”

“I am well aware of that.” Robinson’s hand came to rest lightly on Bert’s thigh. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my eye on Miss Fisher. However, my wife and I have an… understanding,” Robinson said slowly. “An arrangement. Men are allowed me. Other women are not.”

He squeezed Bert’s thigh with gentle, firm pressure. Bert gritted his teeth to keep back the moan building in the back of his throat. The office door might be locked, but there was still the constable on desk duty... “Yer takin’ a helluva chance. Puttin’ an awful lot of power in my hands.”

“I know it.” He slid his hand higher, squeezed again. This time he forced a gasp from Bert’s lips. Robinson moved forward an inch or two, so close that Bert had to look up at him to meet his eyes. “Theoretically, if you were to accuse me of anything, it would be my reputation against yours. You know who the judge would side with.”

“You bloody coppers’re all on the take—” His words were cut off by Robinson’s lips crushing down on his. Christ, it felt good. 

“I said, ‘theoretically’. I just got you off a solicitation charge.”

“So what’s this, payment? Blackmail?”

“If you don’t want this, Albert, you can walk away now. Either way, it will never leave this room.”

“...You plan on talkin’ all night or...?”

Robinson’s hand moved again and squeezed Bert’s cock hard through the crutch of his trousers.


	479. Convenient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If we both stick to the story, they can’t prove anything.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by michele02132.

Phryne stood up hurriedly as the doctor entered the waiting area. "How is he?"

"Touch and go, especially given his age and physical condition, but I believe your father will make a full recovery, Miss Fisher."

She closed her eyes, ashamed of the simultaneous waves of relief and regret that were washing over her. 

"However," the doctor continued sternly, "it means there will be no more flying for the baron anytime soon."

Well, that was one way to be rid of him... but what about getting him back to England and to Mother? They'd only made it as far as Sydney before Henry's persistent air sickness had developed into pneumonia - exacerbated, the doctor said, by flying in all manner of weather (for which Phryne utterly refused to feel guilt; it was his own damned fault they were in this mess, after all, instead of him being well on his way out of her life and her somewhere anonymous doing unspeakably pleasant things with Jack Robinson). 

Phryne decamped to her hotel. She could never think well in hospitals. 

After several hours of soaking, she sent a telegram. 

FATHER ILL PNEUMONIA SYDNEY HOSPITAL -{STOP}- UNABLE TO FLY -{STOP}- WHAT TO DO WITH HIM PS HOW ARE YOUR NERVES -{QUERY}- LOVE PHRYNE -{END}-

She slept badly that night, her dreams uneasy and wavering between blissful visions of being in Jack's arms and her mother weeping over the baron's casket. Margaret Fisher had already lost a daughter through Phryne's negligence... would she be fated to lose her husband as well?

Phryne woke sometime in the late afternoon, to a persistent knock on the door of her hotel suite. It was an apologetic bellhop bearing a telegram. 

MY NERVES TROUBLE ME WHEN CONVENIENT HENRY NOT CONVENIENT -{STOP}- SURELY SOMEONE IN SYDNEY OWES YOU A FAVOUR -{STOP}- PUSH H ONTO A BOAT AND GO HOME DEAR -{END}- 

A bewildered smile spread across Phryne's face. And there _was_ a rather charming doctor in town who did indeed owe her a favour or three... 

"And what exactly are we going to tell everyone else?" Jack asked, several days and many, many lovemaking sessions later. 

"Certainly not the truth," Phryne laughed, showing him her mother's telegram. "We'll just say... Father had a change of heart."


	480. Afloat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Give me a chance and I just might give you the world.” (Jack/Lyle) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

It was a bad idea, there could be no debate about that. A bad idea brought on by bad whisky and bad dreams and bad shared experiences around one very good woman. "I've got a room," Lyle Compton said, his words quiet and very carefully enunciated through a haze of cheap grog. "We can be alone there."

Jack's head was spinning; it had been years since he'd been quite this blotto _or_ since he'd had a bloke make a pass at him. But he was aware enough to realize it was a bad idea, and not because he didn't want to, either. "I've got t' be going, Compton."

The group-captain's hand caught his arm as he moved to rise from the table in the back of the pub. "Just the once. Give me a chance, Detective. I'm not all bad, you know, and we're both afloat now that she's gone again."

He wasn't wrong about that. Clear as a bell, Jack saw in his mind the small white plane rising into the sky, and a small gloved hand waving an energetic goodbye to him. Drunk as he was, he wasn't gone enough to forget the feeling of her cheek against his palm or her lips on his... but it was a very distant memory just now. 

No... Compton wasn't wrong. 

"All right... just the once, mate."

They staggered back to the hotel. Compton pulled himself together enough to speak pleasantly to the manager, explaining that his friend was too soused to drive home and that he'd make up a bed for him on the sofa in his room, no trouble at all, really. Jack cringed inwardly and was glad he didn't know the place very well. 

They got up to Compton's room and locked the door securely, key and bolt and all, and then went at each other, hungrier than they'd expected. His mouth tasted good, and his hands and his cock felt good, and in the morning Jack couldn't even regret that he'd spent most of the night with his face buried in a pillow to muffle his helpless moans while Lyle Compton plowed him like a field. 

But, he swore, tying his tie and trying not to wince when he walked, it was just this once.


	481. Foresight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “She had made a poor job of hiding the damage.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> This ended up being a call-back to [a _very_ old drabble…](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4799084/chapters/14194780)

Miss Fisher and Detective-Inspector Robinson surveyed the wreckage from their vantage point. Her expression was dismayed; his was resigned. “Not a very interesting case,” she commented. 

“No,” said Jack.

“Very poorly executed.”

“Very.”

“I’d say the perpetrator was someone of more intelligence than foresight.”

“Foresight has never been one of her strong points,” Jack agreed, rather grimly. He looked around the living room, hunting for more damage. “I don’t know how I’m going to clean this up.”

“I’m sure Mr. Butler would be happy to offer his assistance,” said Phryne soothingly. “And Dot will want to offer a few suggestions, no doubt – even if she can’t come over to help in person.”

“No. She’d be miserable. The dog hair alone...” Jack shook his head and stepped down from the remains of his sofa. “I can’t think what that damned fool mutt was chasing to cause _this_ much mayhem.”

“A rabbit?” Phryne accepted the hand he offered her and hopped down from the tattered heap of fabric and horsehair. “Or a chicken, perhaps?” Jack’s glower was not leaving her any room for levity. “Well... further investigation is clearly needed.” 

“Clearly,” he growled, and went into the garden to deal with the perpetrator.


	482. Gulf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “She’d got him wrong, but that was her loss.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

That night, Phryne curled up in bed, alone. The truth of the matter was that she often slept alone, but her reputation said otherwise and she rather liked it that way. It gave young men the notion that they had to work hard to impress her in order to gain admittance, which was entirely the case. 

She supposed she could have found someone to join her tonight, if she’d wanted them. But the only companion that interested her was sleeping, equally alone, in a different part of the city.

She wondered if he regretted leaving, after drinks. 

Jack had said more than once that he’d been a changed man when he returned from the war. That he wasn’t the man Rosie had married. That neither of them could cope with the alteration, but they’d kept on trying until there was no point in fooling themselves any longer. 

Phryne wondered. She wondered about Rosie, and whether the war and Jack’s experiences had only been a part of that ultimate decision. She wondered, mainly, if Rosie had regretted her choice while Jack was away – they were from different worlds, those two, the DI’s daughter and the factory-worker’s son – and had simply needed time to come to grips with the realization of how wide that gulf really was.

She wondered, not smugly but sadly, if Rosie understood that her ex-husband and her husband-to-be were separated by an equally wide gulf, and that in Phryne’s considerable experience, Rosie had chosen the lesser of the two men.

And she wondered how long it would take Rosie to realize it.


	483. Instinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You did a bad thing for a good reason.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

The cell was cold. It wasn’t the first time Phryne had been in City South’s holding cells, but that had been in the summer. Now it was winter, and she was still dressed for a night of gin and jazz. She was freezing, in spite of the blankets Dot had been allowed to bring.

“I should have waited,” she murmured.

“Yes, you damned well should have,” Inspector Robinson snapped, from the other side of the bars. “We were right behind you, Phryne!”

“I didn’t...” She swallowed and shook her head. “It didn’t seem as though there was time.”

“Time enough for you to aim and put a bullet between McGarrity’s eyes!”

“He was going to slit her throat, Jack. I just reacted. Instinct, I suppose.”

“‘Instinct’! I can’t show the judge ‘instinct,’ Phryne, I have to show him facts! And the facts are that you apparently shot a man in cold blood!”

She didn’t look up at him, but she could hear in his voice how tight his jaw had become. He would start grinding his teeth soon, and gripping the bars in his hands as though he planned to tear them from their places in the door. “But that’s not what happened.”

“ _I_ know that! But I don’t have any proof! All I have is your word, a missing prostitute, and a corpse!”

“Find the girl.”

“I can’t even find the knife McGarrity was supposedly threatening her with!”

Slowly, Phryne raised her head and looked at him. His blue eyes were ablaze, angry and helpless. “But... you believe me?”

“I do,” he said grimly, “for all the good it will do you. But I’ll try, Miss Fisher. I’ll try to find the girl, and the knife, and...” There was an abrupt catch in his throat. “I’ll try.”


	484. Cabbage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve taken her back? You can’t be serious?” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“Of course I’m serious, why shouldn’t I take her back?” Jack rustled his newspaper decisively and refused to acknowledge the intruder in his home. “She’s the best cook in the state.”

“She’s also a thief,” Phryne reminded him tartly, “or have you forgotten how she made off with your little nest-egg? Not to mention that bottle of whisky I gave you for Christmas?”

“That was my own fault. I shouldn’t have left temptation in Elsie’s way.”

“And just what is wrong with Mr. Butler’s cooking? Or Dot’s?”

“Nothing at all, but I can’t eat dinner with you every night,” Jack said. “I do have to sleep some evenings, you know.” He placidly turned a page. “Care to stay?”

“Ugh, no. You know I can’t abide rabbit _or_ cabbage.”

“Ah well, suit yourself, Miss Fisher.”

She scowled at him, unable to really fault him for giving the old woman another chance, but peeved to be losing his company for the evening. “I’ll see myself out.”


	485. Novelty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My sexual preference is often.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Why so many men?” Jack felt compelled to ask one evening, when he’d stayed a bit too long and drunk a bit too much. “Is it the novelty? The challenge?” 

Phryne eyed him rather appraisingly for a moment or two, deciding how to answer that loaded of a question. “A bit of both, really. And the chase is part of the fun, and I’ve never yet found a man who enjoyed being run after _after_ he's been caught. Most men don’t like doing that much work. So it’s usually back to the game after a night or two.”

“Don’t you ever... um.” Jack swirled the whisky around in his glass, and then regretted it, as his head started to swirl in seemingly the same pattern. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

“I’m sure I would, if I didn’t vary up my plate as much as I do.”

“No, I mean...” He coughed and told himself that the heat rising in his cheeks was from the alcohol. “Don’t you ever get tired of sex?”

Phryne looked at him in amusement, and laughed softly. “Oh, Jack. I’m afraid that women of a certain age are much more vigorous than gentlemen of like years.”

“...Oh.”


	486. Purchase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m here to see footy played, not tiddlywinks.” (Jack/Bert) Requested by meldanya44.

“Worst – god... worst game I've ever seen,” Bert groaned, fisting his cock with one hand and bracing himself against the wall with the other.

Close behind him, Jack grinned. “Can you see much?” he asked, nipping the shell of Bert’s ear. “The view from the locker rooms can’t be that good.”

“I can see enough,” the cabbie snapped, panting. “Can see Donnally makin' a bloody fool of himse _oh fuck!_ ” His fingers scraped desperately for purchase on the concrete block walls.

Jack chuckled. If Albert still had enough attention to focus on the game outside, than he wasn’t doing his best work. And Jack _always_ wanted to do his best.


	487. By-The-Book

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s addictive the minute you let yourself think  
> The things that I say just might matter to someone  
> All of this time I’ve been keeping my mind on the running away  
> And for the first time I think I'd consider the stay   
> (“You Matter to Me” by Sara Barailles) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

"So you're really determined to do this," said Jack, his voice carefully neutral as he accepted the glass that Phryne handed him. "You're going to take your father back to England."

"It's the only way I can be sure he'll actually go home," Phryne replied, keeping her tone light and lighthearted to match his. Now was not a good time to let emotion get in the way of duty, she realized that. Much as she wanted to... as desperately as she wanted to. "And since just bunging him onto a ship didn't work, _and_ since Mother's expecting him on a very specific date--"

"She really wouldn't budge on that?"

"I wired to ask and she refused. She's fed up with him, Jack. And," she added, too dryly, "I can't say that I blame her."

"Still, to fly your father all the way to England - has that journey ever been done?"

"Don't worry so much. It's not as though I'll be trying for some sort of speed record."

Jack snorted and allowed himself a tiny smile. "No doubt you'll end up setting one, whether you try or not, if the Baron's in the air with you."

Phryne grinned a bit over her whisky. "I wish I could say you were exaggerating... Thank you, Jack."

"For what?"

"For not trying to convince me not to do this. For... for not asking me to stay."

"Would it have made a difference if I did?"

"Not in my decision."

Her eyes met his, and she saw nothing there but perfect understanding, and sadness, and... "At least your life will be a little calmer while I'm gone," she added, with a quiet understatement that made him chuckle, almost in spite of himself. 

"Calmer, more by-the-book, and far more dull." He tossed back his whisky and looked at her with an expression she could have easily put a name to, if she'd been feeling just the tiniest bit more brave. "No, I won't ask you to stay. But I will ask you to come back." Jack swallowed hard, and she saw the muscles in his jaw tighten with the strength of the emotions he was holding in. "Come back to us, Phryne."

For a second or two she held her breath. "I'll certainly do my best," she promised, saying less than she wanted to, just as he had. "Goodness knows what sort of trouble you'll all get into without me around."

"Funny." Jack rose to refill their glasses. "I was going to say the same thing about you." His hand brushed lightly over Phryne's shoulder as he passed by.


	488. Bugger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We should really keep this between us.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by afterdinnerminx.

"I won't tell Phryne, if you won't."

"Well, I won't tell Lili, if you won't."

"Deal."

"Deal."

"...They're going to find out anyway."

"Yep. Just as soon as we walk through that door."

"Oh hell. We'll be dead men."

"Or we'll wish we were, before they're through with us."

"Bugger."

"Now? Well, mate, I'm game if you are."

"Not now, damn it! We have to clean up..."

"It's not going to matter, not with how funny we're walking. You know what they'll think--"

"Oh, to hell with what they'll think... they might not guess, not right at first."

"Eh, true. But then again, they might."

"...Maybe we shouldn't go home tonight."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Your place or mine?"


	489. Flammables

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it.” (D.H. Lawrence) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

To say that Jack Robinson was speechless at the sight of the collection was not, Phryne thought, entirely accurate. ‘Speechless’ usually implied some manner of shock or outrage. But typically enough for Jack, he was neither shocked nor outraged, at least not outwardly. He was, she decided, simply lost in deep thought. “Well?” she asked after a rather long time. “What do you think?”

“From a legal and police standpoint, Miss Fisher,” he rumbled, “the matter is clear enough. These photographs are undoubtedly pornographic, and no amount of argument about their artistic merit is going to save their importer from an embarrassingly large fine and possibly from a prison sentence.”

“I see. And just what _is_ your opinion on their artistic merits?”

“My cousin is a professional photographer. I know something about lighting and posing. From that perspective, they’re very good.”

“Hmm.” Phryne casually picked up one of the more outrageous prints out offered it to him. “And the subject matter?”

Jack cleared his throat once or twice. “The subject matter is more than enough to set the paper on fire.”

“No need to worry, Jack. You know I always take good care of my flammables.”


	490. Uncouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I may have accidentally on purpose pissed you off because you're cute when you're worked up about something.” (Phryne/Lili) Requested by sheldonslog.

“I don’t care—” Lili Elsworth hauled off and punched her assailant square in the stomach. “—how cute—” Then she slammed one high-heeled pump sharply against his kneecap. “—you think I look—” And for a finish, she caught up a broken two-by-four and introduced it to his face. “—when I’m angry, but this is taking things a little too far!”

Phryne finished with her own thug and dropped him to the pavement. “I’m flattered, Lil, but as attractive as I find you when you’re annoyed, I’m not foolhardy enough to try and induce it via a mugging.”

“What, you mean you aren’t thoroughly aroused by my demonstration of fighting skills?”

“I _am_ , but that’s not the point.” She stooped and retrieved an ugly-looking knife from one unconscious attacker’s hand. “These two uncouth persons just tried to kill us.”

“...Oh. Sorry, Phryne.” Lili nudged the man she had felled with the tip of her shoe. “So what do we do with them now?”

“Now,” Phryne sighed, “we find a policeman, spend too many hours explaining ourselves, and then try to salvage what’s left of our evening. And before you ask,” she added with a tired grin, “no, that does not include you ravishing me against a wall before we find that constable.”

“Damn,” said Lili.


	491. Sheik

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” (L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Phryne straightened up and looked around. “Where’s Jack?”

Bert set down the case of champagne with a grunt. Normally he would have been grumbling at being asked to be a pack-mule for a toff’s picnic, but he had a soft spot for Phryne’s Aunt Prudence, and a weakness for Bollinger, of which he’d been promised a bottle for himself. “I think Mrs. Stanley hauled him off somewhere. Said she had a job for ‘im.”

“Oh lord, another murder already?”

Bert grinned round the cigarette that seemed permanently fastened to his lower lip. “I hope not, but they went towards the stables.”

“The stables? How romantic!” Phryne flashed her favorite Communist a cheeky smile and went to investigate. 

As she got closer to the Stanley stables, which had been her Uncle Edward’s pride and joy, she heard the forceful tones of her aunt. “That’s it, Inspector, show him who’s boss!”

Phryne’s eyebrows climbed almost into her hairline. Did she even want to know…?

She came round a shrubbery and was greeted by a marvelous sight: Jack Robinson, in his shirtsleeves, astride an enormous black horse, trotting the beast around the stable yard. “Why, Jack!” she said in surprise. “You’re a natural!”

“It’s amazing what you can do when you’re ordered to,” Jack replied, flashing her a wry smile before returning his attention to the horse. 

“Aunt P, why…?”

“Well, that new groom is utterly useless, practically terrified of the animals, and this stallion of Guy’s needs his exercise. And as Detective-Inspector Robinson was here, and handy…” Prudence nodded in satisfaction. “You’d hardly know he’s barely ever ridden before.”

_Oh, I don’t know about that…_ “He’s quite gorgeous,” Phryne said, following the movement of man and beast with appreciative eyes, as Jack rose and fell gracefully in the saddle.

Prudence chose to apply her compliment to the beast rather than to the man. “He’s Guy’s newest acquisition. Sheik, he’s called.”

“I don’t know why Guy bothers to buy horses he’s never going to ride, but for once, I have to compliment him on his purchase.” The muscles in Jack’s forearms, exposed by his rolled-up sleeves, tightened as he pulled the horse to a walk, and Phryne had to stop herself from licking her lips. “In fact, I might have to make him an offer.”


	492. Sometimes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I wonder where my baby is tonight.” (Phryne/Francois & Jack/casual girlfriend) Requested by meldanya44.
> 
> Francois is the dancing partner briefly mentioned in Episode 3x04.

Sometimes, Phryne reflected in a moment of blinding clear thought as Francois whirled her across the dance floor of the smoke-filled speakeasy at two in the morning, sometimes she wanted things that Jack couldn't give her, and he was wise enough and self-aware enough to understand that about her. And she loved him for that.

*** 

Sometimes, Jack reflected, as he lay in bed with Evelyn, soft and domestic and musical, curled up fast asleep against his side, sometimes he wanted things that Phryne couldn't give him, and she was experienced enough and generous enough to make him understand that about himself. And he loved her all the more for it.


	493. Price

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You think I'm being paranoid but the truth is I'm worth nothing to her alive.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Phryne drew a chair up close beside Jack's hospital bed. She tried to focus on the one eye she could see, which was as keenly blue as ever, if somewhat groggy with pain and morphine, and not on the other eye which was swollen shut, or on the other terrible injuries that marred his face and body. "That was a damned fool thing to say to men who were looking for a reason to kill you," she said quietly. 

"They wanted to use me to lure you in," replied Jack, with some difficulty. His lips were split, and his throat was badly bruised. "I couldn't let them..." 

"I wasn't likely to fall for something quite so transparent," Phryne shot back, her smile as glittering and brittle as glass. "I'm not as much of an amateur as you like to paint me."

He grinned painfully and let out a sharp, hoarse gasp of a chuckle. "Not... what I meant."

"Then what?"

"Couldn't let them think... that you have a price. That I'm that price. You can't be bought, even at the cost of a life. One life... it's not worth fifty. And you... you had lives to save."

Phryne swallowed hard, and dared not speak while Jack's eye, gleaming with concern, rested on her. Only when it closed could she say what she was thinking. 

"You're right. I can't be bought." She slid her hand over his splinted and bandaged one. "There is no price I will accept for your blood, Jack Robinson, because no one in the world could ever pay it."


	494. Penchant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I love that I can be me when I'm with you.” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by sheldonslog.

When he had first met Phryne, Jack hadn’t understood her penchant for a different lover every night. It seemed like so much _work_ , so much effort, for someone who was never going to be a permanent fixture. For someone who didn’t matter.

He would never be like Phryne, he knew. He needed some sense of stability, of continuity, in his lovers. But he had her in his life now. He had Sam, and Lily, and there were one or two other women and men who shared his company and his bed when both he and they were in the mood for those intimacies. And they all mattered. They all mattered _deeply_.

There was nothing casual about their encounters, even though they might not meet more than once in a month. There was real intimacy, real emotion. There was love, of a wondrous and varied kind, and there was _trust_. There were pieces of himself, and of his lovers, that could only ever be shared and expressed adequately with that particular person. There was safety. 

And, as Phryne had known from the beginning, there was freedom in the circles of their arms that he had never dreamed of knowing, until he was there.


	495. Bosch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.” (L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“You know, Jack, I have so been looking forward to seeing you again, and finding you like _this_ was not at all what I had in mind. And I certainly don’t want to jump to conclusions. So in the interests of peace and harmony...” Phryne continued, crossing her arms and cocking an eyebrow at her pet detective, as Mother insisted on calling him. “I am all ears.”

Jack tried to disentangle himself from the pile of unconscious, naked, happily spent bodies that he was enmeshed in. “This... might take a while.”

“Which? The telling of the story? Or you trying to free yourself from what’s left of an orgy?”

He grimaced. “Don’t remind me.” Jack gripped a random buttock for purchase as he leveraged himself out of the mess. His hand came away sticky with what he hoped was lubricant. “I feel like I just survived being part of a Hieronymous Bosch painting.”

“Hmm. I haven’t been to one of those parties since Paris, circa nineteen-eighteen.” Phryne’s eyes danced with amusement, as well as admiration, and both at Jack’s expense. 

“I’m too old to be a Bright Young Thing,” Jack grumbled, grabbing the pair of trousers he held out to her. “Even for the sake of investigation. I’ll leave the orgies for you, next time.”


	496. Well-Padded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Why do you look at me like that?” (Bert/Cec) Requested by phrynefisherismyrolemodel.

“C’mon, Bert, you’ve been starin’ at me one an’ off for the last three weeks.”

“No, I haven’t!”

“Yes, you have,” Cec corrected, “an’ you’ve been smirkin’ at me, as well. An’ I want t’ know: what gives?”

“Nothing!”

“Bert,” Cec said warningly. “Yer gonna find somethin’ very unpleasant in yer bed t’night if you don’t tell me.”

“Honest, mate, it’s nothin’. Just... you’ve been lookin’ a little plumper ‘round the edges, since yer missus has been expectin’.”

“...No, I ain’t.”

Bert grinned broadly and poked a finger against Cec’s ribs, which were rather more well-padded than they had been before. “Always heard about blokes ‘carryin’ along with their missus, when they’re about t’ become dads, but never thought it was real.” He chuckled and gave his mate a kiss on the cheek. “No worries. It suits ya.”


	497. March

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I could spend all day with you and still think that there wasn’t enough time.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by edeainfj.

The steam seeping from beneath the long red bonnet of the Hispano boded very ill for their immediate future. "I don't suppose automobile mechanics is one of your many hidden talents," said Jack, in a surprisingly conversational tone. 

Phryne had to shake her head. "I'm afraid not. And right now, I'm regretting it."

"Barefoot dancing lessons seeming a little frivolous?"

"A touch... but no more so than your expensive imported orchid slips." 

Jack grunted. "Well, we can't stay here. We've got to find some place to send a telegram, and it's a good long way to the nearest town."

"So it is." Phryne took the sunglasses from atop her head, shook out her hair, and settled the glasses on her nose. "About face, sergeant. We've got a long march ahead of us."

Jack offered her his arm. "This is not the holiday we were expecting. As usual."

Phryne grinned. "What else is new, darling?"


	498. Strays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There’s a surprise for you in the garage.” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by meldanya44, who specifically asked for ‘reconciled Jack/Rosie domesticity’.

"In the garage?" Rosie repeated. "Jack... you didn't buy a car, did you?"

"I did not," he promised, taking baby William from her arms and helping her to her feet. His blue eyes glinted with subdued excitement. 

"Good. I hate driving." Rosie hesitated. "I thought... well, I was worried you might have bought a car for me because..."

"Rosemary." He kissed her softly. "You're a new mother, and one who prefers to stay home. That's your choice. I'm not going to try to force you to socialize."

"I've got enough to do without trying to maintain my former place in society," Rosie said dryly. "Besides, anyone who wants to see me knows perfectly well where to find me. So what _is_ in the garage, Jack?"

"Go look."

Rosie narrowed her eyes and went outside. The doors were open, and laying on a pile of sacks in the cool shaded interior was an enormous brown dog, who raised his head when Rosie came into view and wagged his tail politely. 

"Jack, you _didn't_..." She murmured, bending to caress the silky head. "I haven't had a dog since before we were married."

"The first time," Jack added, stooping to let the baby stretch out a chubby hand to the Newfoundland. "His name's Charlie. One of Miss Fisher's red raggers takes in all sorts of strays."

Rosie smiled. "Not unlike Miss Fisher herself," she commented, kneeling to put her arms around the big pup. Charlie gave her a friendly (and, it's true, rather slobbery) lick on the cheek and flopped down with a happy sigh.


	499. Communication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It’s all a misunderstanding!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

“We do seem to get caught up in a lot of misunderstandings, don’t we…”

“We do. And without meaning to. After all, we’re very good at communication.”

“With each other, yes. Now we are. But it’s taken us quite a while to get to that point. We aren’t naturally trusting people… even if it is surprisingly easy to trust one another.”

“Easy… and frightening.”

“Yes…” Their hands clasped in the darkness. The touch was warm, comforting… reassuring. “But it may be time to start taking other people into our confidence.”

There was silence. Then, “What if they don’t understand, even after we’ve explained?”

“Then we’ll go on doing as we’ve always done.”

A relieved sigh. “Good.”


	500. Earthquake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did you enjoy yourself last night?” (Jack/Bert) Requested by firesign23.

He ran into Albert sooner than he’d expected, in Miss Fisher’s kitchen the very next morning. From the look on his face, and the way he choked on his tea when Jack walked in, Albert hadn’t been expecting to see him quite so soon, either.

“In-inspector,” he greeted, trying to mop up the mouthful he’d spilled down his waistcoat. A blush was spreading over his tan cheeks, a very familiar sight… 

Jack nodded. “Albert.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded gruff and tight, not at all the warm commanding way he’d spoken last night… “Thank you, Mr. Butler,” he said, when that august personage graciously handed him a cup of tea. 

Mr. Butler smiled in his serene way. “Cecil, I’ve got some flower pots in the shed that I think are just right for your missus. If you’ll give me a hand, we can shift them into the cab now.”

“Right-o,” Cec said genially, and the two men left by way of the kitchen door, which Mr. Butler shut with care. 

Jack took the chair that Cec had vacated and reached for a scone. “You left early,” he said quietly to Bert. 

“I said g’bye, but you were sleepin’ so deep, I don’t think an earthquake would’a woken you up.”

Jack, who was a very light sleeper and had been awake the entire time that Bert was dressing, let this white lie pass. “Wake me up next time, all right?”

Bert’s blush deepened. “Next time.”


	501. Routine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The highest form of love is to be the protector of another person’s solitude.” (Rainer Maria Rilke) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by ladygrayluvs.

Hugh Collins took a startled step back. "Miss Fisher! I—is the Inspector at home?"

"Well, he's physically here – it's his house, after all – but as my parents' butler is wont to say, 'The master is not at home to visitors.'" Phryne grinned tiredly. "Of course, in my father's case, that typically meant he was either too drunk to stand or else trying to soothe his hangover with more whisky."

"Uh... well, naturally," Hugh fumbled. "Um, Miss, I really _do_ need to see the Inspector, so if I could just—"

"Not today, Hugh." Phryne's hand on the young constable's shoulder was gentle but unsurprisingly strong, as she pushed him back off the front step. "Jack's in no condition to speak with anyone."

"It's just routine—"

"I know. And the answer's the same. You can take his statement when he's back in the office."

"...Right. And will he be back tomorrow?"

"I certainly hope so," said Phryne quietly, and before Hugh could get in another word, she shut the door gently in his face.


	502. Stubbornness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Is that chocolate?” (Rosie/Mac) Requested by blackkitty9.

"Aha!" 

The triumphant pronouncement made Mac look up from her examination of Mr. Jenkinson's left lung. "Good evening, Miss Sanderson."

"Don't 'Miss Sanderson' me, darling, you've no idea how long I've been trying to track you down." Rosie strode into the autopsy room with determination on her face and a rather substantial wicker basket in her hand. 

"'Track me down,' indeed. I've only been here for a few hours."

"Yes, and before that you were at the women's hospital, and before that you were at the university, and before _that_ ," Rosie said, putting the hamper down on Mac's desk with a thump, "you were here again. Beth, you haven't been home in three days."

Mac sighed and gave up on Mr. Jenkinson, for the time-being. "I know. I'm sorry, Rosie, but this case... it's a real pig, and I simply haven't had the time to go home."

"Or to sleep. When I asked at the hospital, the duty-round nurse said she'd found you conked out in one of the empty beds in the maternity ward."

"Sister Hanratty. She gave me a find scolding and packed me right out. Told me to go home, but I still had some work to finish up here—" Mac was cut off in mid-sentence by the rumbling of her stomach. 

Rosie smirked and patted the picnic hamper. "I brought a hunk of that iced cake you like so much."

Mac raised an eyebrow. "What, that chocolate one? The one that my mother's been trying to weasel the recipe for out of you for the last, what, six months?"

"The very one, and I refuse to give it up." Rosie began unpacking the hamper, starting with the cake. She knew better than to try and drag Mac away from her work, but thankfully there was a partition between Mac's desk and the autopsy table. "D'you know, I think she likes me more for not telling her."

"Mum definitely has a weak spot for stubbornness," Mac agreed, peering over Rosie's shoulder to see what else she had brought along. 

"I can't imagine why," Rosie teased, breaking off a piece of the cake and popping it into Mac's mouth.


	503. Diplomacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been given something for a while, and the price of it is that I have to give it back.” (Terry Pratchett, _The Wee Free Men_ ) (Phryne/Alien!Jack) Requested by firesign23.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Phryne had long since learned that it was better to try and divert Jack, when his attention lingered on the stars for too long. He would get terribly melancholy, the more he considered the cosmos. 

Jack let out a huff and flopped back in the grass beside their campfire. The trip had been his idea, a chance for them both to get away and simply _be_ in one another’s company. Phryne had agreed, more out of diplomacy and fondness for him than out of any real fondness for camping. “It’s nothing, really. I’ve just been trying to figure out… what it all means, I suppose.”

“What _what_ all means?”

“All… this,” Jack said, waving a hand up at the stars. “And all this,” he continued gesturing back and forth between himself and Phryne. 

She replied with a lopsided smile and reached for the tea. “Still not sure how it all fits?”

“I keep thinking that there’s got to be some bigger purpose behind it all. That I got left behind for a reason. That someday… someone’s going to come back for me.”

“Would you want them to? I mean, you’ve said as much yourself, you don’t remember anything of the world you came from.”

“No,” said Jack mournfully. “Only images, really. Feelings. Sometimes I’d give anything, everything, to know what those images and feelings mean. But I know that for that to happen, there’s a price that would need to be paid.”

Phryne waited. “And?”

“And I’m not sure I can afford it. Or that I’d even want to.”

Jack sighed and sat up, and paid the stars no more attention that night.


	504. Emphasis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I want to be there when you get what’s coming to you.” (Bert/Mary) Requested by meldanya44.
> 
> Mary, for those playing the home game, is the girl Aunt Prudence takes in at the end of "Unnatural Habits".

“You’ll come to ruin one of these days,” said Mary confidently, as Bert Johnson lounged in Mrs. Stanley’s kitchen. “Mucking about with toffs an’ gettin’ mixed up in murder after murder.”

Bert grinned over his tea. “Figure if I can come through the War without anythin’ worse than a case of the ‘Gallipoli gallop’, then I can survive runnin’ down killers an’ thieves with Miss Fisher.”

Mary snorted and banged down a plate of fresh scones in front of him. “That’s what all you red raggers say. ‘If I can survive this, I can survive anything!’ It makes a man reckless, that’s what it does.” She poked at Bert’s sore shoulder, so recently wrenched in a fight with a suspected murderer, for emphasis. 

“Ow! C’mon, Mary, cut it with the dry rations! ‘Sides, it’s not like you’ve got any money in this race.”

“Maybe not,” she said, not altogether convincingly, “but I’ve got my Arthur t’ think of, an’ so far you’re the nearest thing he’s got to a dad, and I wouldn’t like to have to explain why you’re not around, if someday you’re not. And there’s Mrs. Stanley! What’d she do without you?”

Fond as Bert was of Prudence Stanley, he wasn’t thinking of her at just that moment. “What exactly are ya sayin’, luv?”

“Just—just that I want t’ be there when you get what’s coming to you!” Her fair features coloured up mightily. “That’s all.”

“That’s all, eh?” A slow, delighted grin spread across Bert’s face. “Well now… seems as though we might be able to arrange that, after all.” He picked up a scone and broke it apart, and ate it piece by piece, all the while smiling as though he was floating on air.


	505. Coy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “There’s something I need to get off my chest.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

The Honourable Phryne Fisher took a drink from her glass. “Well, Jack?”

Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson did likewise. “Well, Miss Fisher?”

“Shall you begin, or shall I?”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“True, but don’t be coy. You’ve been thinking it since the moment I got back.”

“Not true. I’ve been thinking it since the moment you left. _You’ve_ only been wondering the same of me since you got back.”

Phryne’s eyes danced. “Oh,” she purred, “not true. Not true at all.”

“So we’ve both been wondering since the moment your plane took off.” Jack smiled, more with his eyes than with his mouth, and took another thoughtful drink. “We’ve both been wondering… who were you seeing while you were in London… and who was _I_ seeing while you were in London?”

Phryne licked her lips enticingly. “And so I say again, Jack: shall you begin? Or shall I?”


	506. Position

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Did you just...giggle?” (Jack/Sam Elsworth) Requested by sheldonslog.

Jack straightened himself up to his very tallest, which, compared to Sam, was not quite so tall as he would have liked. “Samuel Willard Elsworth, I am a grown man, past forty, and with a position to keep. And I am telling you: I do _not_ giggle. And certainly not like a dope addict.”

“You do and you did,” Sam jeered, “and what’s more I heard you, and Phryne is going to be _jealous_.”

“…She is?”

“You’re damned right she is! She’s always complaining that she can barely get you to smile, let alone to laugh. And here I found out just the right spot to poke you to make you giggle like a bloody hyena.” Sam threw back his head and roared with laughter. “She’s going to pay me for this one.”

“You two had a _bet_ on who could get me to laugh?”

“Oh, her entire _household_ is in on this! And my wife, and Angela Lombard, and—whoop!”

Jack tackled him neatly, and then there was no more giggling.


	507. Broad-Minded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I never thought it would be so… big.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“It’s lucky for you that I’m a broad-minded man,” Jack grumbled, his jaw very tight as Mac performed the autopsy. 

“I think it’s rather fortunate for you that both Dr. MacMillan and I are both broad-minded woman,” Phryne replied, her voice very light, a tone that told both of her friends that she was battled some very tight nerves. 

“And I think you both need to step outside for some air before you vomit all over me and my corpse,” said Mac bluntly, as her scalpel carefully dissected the penis of their victim. “So far, the size of this bloke’s wedding tackle has been the only good thing about this case. Gives me more to work with.” She glanced up at Phryne. “Thought I can’t for the life of me understand what you see in men like this. Just… ow.”

She did something drastic with the blade of her knife, and Jack winced visibly.


	508. Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Tell me a secret before you meant to.  
> Worry what I’ll do. Trouble over me.” (Tift Merritt) (Hugh/Dottie) Requested by jasbeaux.

“Dottie…” Hugh felt like throwing up his hands. He’d always thought it was a needlessly melodramatic gesture, but his mum did it and all his married sisters did it, and his married brother’s wives when his nephews misbehaved, and, well, if it made them feel better, than maybe there was something in it. God knew Hugh Collins felt like throwing his hands into the air in frustrated resignation at least twice a day, where his wife was concerned. 

“Dottie, you can’t just take that. It’s evidence, I have to write it down first, and then the Inspector—”

“Inspector Robinson will understand,” she said, in the quietly confident tone of voice that filled Hugh with pride but also gave him so many problems. “After all, it’s for Miss Fisher.”

“And what if he doesn’t understand?” Hugh retorted, closing the file and whisking it under the desk before his wife could see more than she’d already seen. “Dottie, I know you take working for Miss Fisher very seriously, and—and I’m glad that you do, but I just… I feel like sometimes you forget that being a policeman is what _I_ take seriously.”

She frowned. Secretly, Hugh adored Dottie’s face when she frowned. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he adored her face all the time, even when she was mad at him. She wasn’t mad now (not yet, at least), thankfully. “I don’t ever forget that, Hugh.”

“Good. Because it’s important to me. And I wish…” He gritted his teeth, remembering what Inspector Robinson had told him about peace and harmony in a marriage, about how sometimes little untruths were necessary to maintain order. It was awkward, taking advice about marriage from Inspector Robinson, seeing how his first marriage had turned out and how his second marriage wasn’t really any sort of marriage at all, but Hugh felt sure that there was good advice in there somewhere. “I wish you worried as much about me getting to do my job well as you do about doing a good job for Miss Fisher.”

Dottie looked at him as though he’d smacked her across the face. She gathered up her things and turned and left the station in a prim fury. 

Hugh let out a deep sigh. He reached under the desk for the file, to leave it in Inspector Robinson’s office… and found it was gone. Somehow, she’d snuck it out from the other side of the desk, and made off with it. 

Hugh threw up his hands and swore so vilely, he immediately looked round to see if his mother was coming after him with the soap.


	509. Plus Ça Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Remember when we were dating? You were such a pain.” “Great sex though.” “True.” (Phryne & Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.

The car horn honked again. Phryne fancied she detected a note of fond amusement as well as annoyance in the loud, obnoxious sound, and couldn’t help grinning. _Some things never change,_ she said to herself, throwing off the bedclothes and throwing on a random assortment of garments that (she trusted) all matched, all complimented each other, and all made her look fabulous. 

She ran down the stairs, whisked her outer things from Mr. Butler’s competent, ever-ready arms, and darted out the door and into Jack’s car. “So sorry, Jack. I did set my alarm clock last night, I swear.”

He snorted. “And then last night’s dancing partner knocked it off the nightstand, no doubt.”

Phryne smiled. “Something like that.”

“Enjoy yourself?”

“Not as much as I’d hoped,” she admitted. “Sometimes a man with more theory than experience can be enjoyable…”

“True,” said Jack, good-naturedly. “I was proof of that.”

“You were the prime example of that.” And oh, how he had been. Their hours in her boudoir after her return from England had been some of the most exquisite of her life. A pity that in the end they had made better partners than lovers. “Mr…” She waved her hand vaguely in the backward direction of her house. “Was not.”

“His name’s Tobias Gestner,” Jack supplied. “He’s harmless, unlike most of your other one-nighters.”

“Working back again, Inspector? It’s positively indecent that you can name all of my passing gentleman friends when I can’t even remember your wife’s name.”

Jack rolled his eyes like the frustrated melodramatist he was. She actually _did_ know his wife’s name, of course (it was Eleanor), and he _knew_ that she knew. But by now it was a joke of long-standing, and neither of them would dream of giving it up. 

_No,_ Phryne thought, settling in for the ride to the station with a warm glow in her chest, _some things never change._


	510. Academic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I say I’m in love with her. What does that mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself. Like genius she is ignorant of what she does.” (Jeanette Winterson, _The Passion_ ) (Rosie/Mac) Requested by meldanya44.

She thought about Mac – about _Beth_ – all the time. She couldn’t help it. There had been so many mistakes in her life. So many false steps and false starts. Rosie had to constantly be on her guard to make certain she wasn’t allowing the past to repeat itself. Was what she felt different? Were the reasons why she responded to Beth so readily different from why she had once responded to Jack and then later to Mr. Fletcher? Were they the _right_ reasons?

She believed, this time, for the first time, that they were. Not because she was being whirled about by the thrill of romance. Not because she was looking for a safe person to attach her life to. 

Beth – her mannerisms, her moods, her academic eccentricities – all of her was _comfortable_. Even the dark places, and everyone had them (Rosie knew that well enough), felt natural when she had to confront them. Not easy. Never _easy_. But natural. Right. Different from her own, but not enough to frighten her away.

Never enough for that.


	511. Concerns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Why bother, you’ll do exactly what you want in the end anyway.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by timetravelbypen.

Phryne props herself up on one bare elbow among the silks and satins and watches Jack getting dressed. “You look somewhat more concerned than I would like,” she says, her voice quiet and still throaty with sleep. “Was last night so bad?”

“You know it wasn’t.” Jack threads his cufflinks through his shirt cuffs with careful deliberation. “It’s not last night that concerns me. It’s this morning.”

“Ah.” She lets the single word hang, tremulous, in the air between them. “You’re worried about what people will say.”

“No one will say a word, Phryne.” Jack finishes with his cuffs and straightens his tie in her full-length mirror. There is something about his restrained, buttoned-up presence in her sumptuous bedroom that sends delicious shivers through her body. “But as to what they will _think_ …”

“If either of us gave a damn about what people think, we would have stopped this a long time ago. Well before it had a chance to get started.”

Jack can’t argue with that, and doesn’t try. “I need to get to the station,” he says instead. He buttons on his waistcoat, smooths a hand over his hair, and picks up his jacket and hat. 

Phryne tilts her head back as he bends down to kiss her goodbye. “Are you going to ask me to come back?” he murmurs.

Her smile is as quiet as her voice, but it speaks volumes. “Do I need to?”


	512. Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If you don’t kiss me right now, I think I might die.” (Jack/Concetta) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

His lips were mortal sins. Even, she thought sometimes, the work of the devil. Surely God would not create send such a tempting mouth into the path of a poor widow, and then prevent her from tasting it. 

She had such _thoughts_ whenever she saw Gianni, and when she thought of his kisses, her whole body flushed and she was ashamed. And then she was not ashamed, for she was a widow, not some innocent virgin. She had been, once… But that was long ago, and now she knew what a man’s lips could do. 

When he came to dinner, when he ate the food she served him, when he drank the rich red wine, it was almost too much. At the table, she prayed silently to be released from her torment. In bed, she prayed for a different sort of release.


	513. Tackle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Your penis is not imbued with magic powers.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.

He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that there were so many arguments. They were very different people, after all, and literally the only reason why they hadn’t rowed more before was that it hadn’t mattered quite as much. 

He didn’t like losing his temper. Not anymore, not since the war. And he made it a point not to, because Phryne never did. Losing one’s temper was so dreary. No, she just became cool as ice and hard as nails, and it got right the hell under his skin, fired him up in the strangest bloody way.

There were jokes, at the station, in the locker room at the gym and at the cycling club, things about how maybe now that Miss Fisher was getting a good nightly rogering from one of Melbourne’s finest, she might stay home nights and stay out of trouble. 

They were wrong on two counts. One, Jack wasn’t sure who was rogering who, most nights, and second, if anything was going to make Phryne Fisher stay home and out of trouble, it bloody well wasn’t going to be his cock and balls, above average as they might be. 

His wedding tackle might win prizes in the bedroom, but once the sex was over, it wasn’t going to win him any arguments.


	514. Known

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I know you think  
> You know him better  
> Wait a little longer  
> I know him too.” (Tift Merritt) (Phryne/Rosie) Requested by jasbeaux.

“Where’s Jack this evening?” Rosie asked, sipping champagne from the glass that Phryne held to her lips. “You two usually like to spend a quiet Saturday night in.”

“Hmm, yes…” Phryne was momentarily distracted by the sheen of wine on Rosie’s lips. “He declined to come home with me.”

“Ah.”

“‘Ah’?” Phryne pulled away the champagne glass. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“About Jack?” Rosie smirked up at Phryne, who happened to be sitting in her lap. “Quite a lot, I should think.”

“Is that so…”

“Of course. I’ve known him longer than you have, after all.”

“Length of acquaintance doesn’t necessarily mean that you know someone well,” Phryne pointed out, with a mock-seriousness that sent a shiver of anticipation down Rosie’s spine. “After all, you and I have only known each other for a few months—”

“Years,” Rosie corrected, suddenly very aware of Phryne’s weight on her thighs. 

“We have only _known_ one another,” Phryne repeated, low in her throat, “for a few months. And yet, I already know how to bring you to your knees.”

“Really, now…” Rosie licked her lips, obliterating the last of the champagne. “Not even Jack knows that.” She reached up and pulled Phryne closer. “Prove it.”


	515. I Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Come on!  
> Tonight I'm yours,  
> I'm a dead girl walking!  
> Get on all fours,  
> Kiss this dead girl walking!  
> Let's go, you know the drill;  
> I'm hot and pissed and on the pill.  
> Bow down to the will of a dead girl walking!” ( _"Dead Girl Walking" from Heathers: The Musical_) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by blackkitty9.

There was murder in Phryne's eyes when Jack turned up at Wardlow, a cold, determined rage that scared him more than anything had in years. "Here to try and talk me out of it?" she asked shortly, before turning her attention back to Mr. Butler's arsenal of firearms. "You know it won't do any good, Jack." 

"I know, but I still have to try."

"Why?" She checked the sight of the Luger.

"Because I don't want you to get killed!" Jack almost shouted. "Or to kill anyone else. Please Phryne, let the law handle it."

"The law won't do a damned thing about this, Jack. And you know it."

Yes, he knew. Jack gritted his teeth, holding back something building in his chest that he was frightened to give voice to. "If you go... I'll be duty-bound to report you. And I won't be able to shield you or help you in any way."

"I already knew that." A glimmer of the old Phryne humor, the Phryne he knew, ghosted across her face. "And I deeply appreciate you coming here and admitting that to my face. But I'm not changing my mind. That monster needs killing _badly_ , and if you were being honest with yourself, you'd be right here getting your gun ready with me."

"...You're right. You're absolutely right. But I _can't_ afford to be honest with myself about this, because if things go badly, which they very likely _will_ , then someone is going to have to take care of the people that you're about to leave behind."

She smiled slightly, an expression that chilled Jack to the bone. "Mac's the executor of my will."

"Then you know you're going to die tomorrow, if you go after this maniac."

"I know."

There was nothing else to say. All the words left Jack's mind after that, and when she grabbed him and pressed her mouth to his, with all her teeth in her kiss, he simply let his body take over while she had him on the dining room table and on the landing of the stairs.

Eventually they made it to Phryne’s bed, and that was where Jack woke up in the morning, alone, sore and sticky, and with the memory of her seared white-hot into his brain.


	516. Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I just want a nice, easy life. What's wrong with that?” (Bert/Cec) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Cec slouched into the pub and slumped heavily into his usual spot. Bert looked at his mate with some concern. "What's the matter? Playin' house gettin' you down?"

"Something like that." Cec sighed and wrapped his hands around the glass of beer Bert had already ordered for him. "Pete's got croup, little Aggie's got colic, there's been a dog among the chooks, an' Alice's mum is stayin' to help out with the kids. Says it'll give me an' Alice some time t' rest." He took a drink of his beer and grimaced. "Not ruddy likely."

Bert grinned to himself. "The old woman's a force t' be reckoned with, ain't she."

"That's putting it mildly. _You'd_ get along with her awright, you like the old dragons," Cec teased. "Me, I'm all for the quiet life, so I just do what she tells me." He fiddled with the button of his shirt cuff. "Actually, Bert, I was wonderin'... Alice told her mum it'd been a while since I had a night out with the lads..."

"Well, ain't Alice a doll," Bert said with a smile. "She expectin' you home tonight?"

"Nah. She told the old lady I'd be too sozzled an' that you'd take care of me until morning."

"Reckon I could do that." Bert raised his glass to his best friend's incredibly understanding wife. "Reckon I could do that just fine."


	517. Incomprehensible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23. 
> 
> Rated E for anal sex and bodyswap!sex. I may or may not be trolling firesign...

Phryne laved her tongue tenderly over Jack's soft, supple arse. He moaned softly, pushing back against her mouth, and reflected once again on the incomprehensible situation. He was surprised at how clear his mind was. Then Phryne's tongue dipped into the tight pucker of his arsehole and all thoughts of anything flew away.

Her hands _(his hands)_ were splayed across his buttocks ( _her_ buttocks), spreading him wide. Her _(his)_ tongue swirled and probed over his _(her)_ sensitive little hole, and Jack shivered. “Phryne,” he moaned softly, curling his hands into her satin-covered pillows. The fabric was reassuringly cool beneath his manicured fingernails. “I’ve never... oh...” He bit his lower lip hard and buried his face in the smooth purple satin. 

“But I have,” Phryne murmured softly, her deep warm voice a rough and rumbling wave over Jack’s skin, breaking against the jagged edges of his consciousness and momentarily drowning all his anxieties. “You don’t need to worry, Jack.” She squeezed his arse cheeks with a light, firm pressure. “This body knows what to expect, even if you don’t.”

“But you’ll... still be slow?”

“Slow and gentle,” Phryne promised. She pressed the flat of her tongue to his hole with a small undulating motion that soon had Jack recreating the motion with his body against the bed.


	518. Lads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You’re very good at this.” (Mac/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

“You’ve been with a Sapphist before,” Mac deduces. “No man without that experience would have asked where he was allowed to touch me, especially when I was sitting naked on your lap.”

Jack’s smile is crooked and a little wistful. “My ex-wife. She didn’t mind me, but her preference was definitely for women.”

“That’s largely how I am,” says Mac, skirting the more accurate explanation that it is for reasons of self-preservation, rather than personal preference, which she does not especially have, that keeps her confined to the beds of women. “You probably don’t think of me as a woman all that often—at least, not as the sort of woman you’d take to bed.”

“To be honest, I tend to think of you as one of the lads.”

Mac gives him a half-grin. She likes that, more than she can let on. “Do you usually end up taking any of the lads to bed?”

“Sometimes,” says Jack quietly, not looking up from the autopsy paperwork. “Although I’m usually on the bottom, at such times.”


	519. Shenanigans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I have never done this before—should be fun!” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

It wasn't every day that Jack needed to go undercover with Phryne at a weekend party full of Bright Young Things, so he was at a bit of a disadvantage in packing for a fashionable Saturday-to-Monday. Thankfully, Mr. Butler was more than happy to help supply him with the right togs, lounge suits and cravats and the like. 

"Haven't you two red raggers got anything better to do than stand around sniggering?" Jack grumbled, while Mr. Butler measured and fitted him in Phryne's dining room. 

Bert and Cec grinned at each other, but before Bert could open his mouth, Phryne interjected (with a poorly-hidden smile of her own), "Are you positive you want to do this, Jack?"

"I'm positive I want to uncover the person who murdered Jonas Worthington," he said, wincing at the colour of the suit trousers Mr. Butler was measuring against his frame. "And if that means pretending to be Archie Jones for a few nights—"

"I know you can handle the play-acting, and very well. But these sorts of parties can be very hot with all sorts of drugs and drinks and shenanigans—"

“Miss Fisher, I'm going to this party to find a murderer. If there are other charges that need to be made, I’ll think about that after we've arrested the killer.” Jack picked up a gaudily-patterned cravat from the dining room table and rubbed the thick silk between his fingers. "Are you sure you're comfortable with this cover story?"

"What's not to be comfortable with?" Phryne shooed Bert and Cec out of the dining room with a request to go pick up Dot at her mother's house. "To deflect attention from our otherwise-out-of-the-ordinary questioning, I will tell people, repeatedly, that I'm not on duty, and then flirt outrageously, while _your_ job, ‘Archie,’ is to glower over the punch bowl and chat up the ladies and be the jealous boyfriend."

"That's why I'm asking," said Jack quietly. "I know your history with jealous boyfriends."

"...Mr. Butler, would you mind?"

"Of course, Miss."

Phryne touched Jack's arm gently. Through the thin material of his shirtsleeve, her hand was warm and alive. "Thank you, Jack. But this was my idea, after all, so we're going to go ahead with it."

His forehead creased with worry, but only for a moment, before he nodded. 

"Besides," Phryne continued lightly, "I've spoken to our host, and apparently we're going to be housed in the same bedroom--"

"—Excuse me, _what?_ "

"—and I can't think of another man I'd rather pretend to be locked into an unhealthy relationship with."

"Oh, well, thank you very much," Jack muttered, rolling his eyes heavenward. 

“It’ll be just like an Agatha Christie detective story.” 

“…A what?”


	520. Sculpted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “She doesn't understand you like I do.” (Mac/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> Rated E for pegging. I had quite a few requests for this one, actually, after yesterday's Mac/Jack... *evil grin*

Jack Robinson’s pale olive skin shimmers with oil; in the low light, his tumbled brown hair is a dark shadowy smudge. There is something exotic about him, even though he is of much the same stock as Mac herself, good Scottish blood. He is lying on his back, half-propped up by pillows, watching her every move. He is certainly an exquisitely sculpted man, and Mac has indulged in long nights of sketching his thighs and chest and his back. Most of the sketches are for her anatomy and dissection classes; one or two are for her private edification. But he is still an otherwise ordinary man and Mac does not often bother to fuck men.

But she fucks Jack. And on a fairly regular basis. So familiarity might account for some of the fascination. Surprise might, as well. He is a courteous and passionate lover, which does not surprise her, and she has found his organ to be intensely satisfying, which does. Mac prefers her lovers’ cocks, when they possess them at all, to be of the artificial sort, like the one she has at that very moment slung round her hips and supported round her thighs by leather straps. The natural sort she’s always found to be more trouble than they’re worth.

Then again, Jack doesn’t insist on using his every time they make love, which is a novelty. He is perfectly capable of getting himself off without climaxing inside anyone, and told her so. His focus, like a search light, is always on her, and Mac has no objections to him using his hands and mouth on her in whatever ways he thinks best. 

Perhaps, she muses, watching Jack bite his lip as he waits for her, that is why she enjoys his body so much. He so rarely thinks of it. And why she gets as much pleasure out of taking his ass with her cock of oiled leather, stuffed with cotton and stiffened with wood, as he does in being taken. There are women (she knows, because she knows Phryne Fisher) who get off on bringing a man to his knees, on having this power over him. ‘It all comes back to their cocks,’ Phryne had laughed, fond in her female superiority over the men who tried to win her. ‘So many of them want to be possessed, and they’re scared of it, because having a cock up their arse will make them less of a man or some such nonsense.’

There is none of that with Jack.

Mac kneels on the bed and folds his legs up, bent at the knees, with one hand. His hole is stretched for her, wet and waiting. She traces the tender edge with one fingertip.

He moans through closed lips. It’s a curiously androgynous noise and makes Mac’s cunt clench pleasurably. She holds his eyes and, slowly, sinks her fingers into his asshole. 

“Oh, fuck,” he whimpers, a soft reedy sound. “Oh... oh fuck...”

She teases him for a minute or two, slicking and stretching him, then replaces her fingers with the head of her cock, pressing into him inch by inch. It’s longer than she cares to have inside her, but he craves it. 

She can feel the trembling of his internal muscles through the leather. She smooths her hands down the hard curve of his thighs and drinks in the soft high moans and the expression of sweet surrender in his eyes.


	521. Horizon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Your journey ends here.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.
> 
> Takes place after [Creatures of Stillness](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5815609/chapters/13401868) and [Smooth Seas](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8338426).

There was land on the horizon. Phryne stood at the railing of the ship and gazed at it thoughtfully. There was a broad presence standing just behind her, blocking the cool air from her back. "Nearly there."

"Nearly," Jack rumbled. He laid a leather-gloved hand on her shoulder. "I'm almost sorry this round-the-world adventure is coming to an end."

"'Almost'?"

"Well," he smiled, "I am getting just the slightest bit sick of the sea."

"Even if this luxury liner has been worlds better than the infamous _S. S. Mutton_?" Phryne returned lightly, belying the weight in her heart. Why she was so dreading stepping ashore in Melbourne, she had no real idea, unless it was simply that she did not want to let go of the adventure story that the last year had been. Just her and her Jack, taking on the world. 

"Even so." He bent and brushed his lips across the shell of her ear. "Even the best of pirates must someday retire to the land, Phryne."

"Oh, what rot. The best pirates go down fighting."

Jack chuckled. "I wasn't suggesting a _peaceful_ retirement."

"Good." She turned and grinned at him, her eyes suddenly alight with fire and mischief. "Because where would be the fun in that?"


	522. Swoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The way you flirt is shameful.” (Mac/Rosie) Requested by meldanya44.

"You're going to get me in trouble one of these days," Mac pointed out, as she and Rosie were having dinner at the Iphis Club. Her words were stern but her eyes were more amused than anything else. "Flirting with me at work like that."

"I wasn't _flirting_ ," Rosie corrected. "All I said was that I'd had a busy morning and could use a nap before we went out tonight."

"Yes, and you happened to say it in front of several of my university colleagues."

"...Is that against the rules?"

"The words, no." Mac took a drink from her glass. "But the way you _looked_ at me when you said it... it was positively indecent. I thought Dr. Baines was going to swoon."

Rosie's grin was equally indecent. "Yes, Beth, I have to confess, it's true: I have a mad, uncontrollable desire to nap with you."

"Miss Sanderson, please, I really must protest."

"I want to rent a luxurious hotel room with an enormous bed and mountains of fluffy pillows, for the sole purpose of napping with you in that bed. For hours and hours on end." 

"Stop, don't, I beg you," Mac teased. "This is really too scandalous. Whatever will people think?" She rested her elbows on the table and her chin on her laced fingers. "It does sound like a splendid way to spend the day, though."

"Doesn't it _just_?"

"Mmm... if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go up to the desk and call the Windsor, see what they can do for us on short notice."


	523. Stingy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, I don’t think so.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

“Can I see that folder?”

“No.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I said, no. You were excessively rude to me earlier and I haven’t forgiven you yet.” Phryne turned a typed page with an air of well-bred coldness. “Besides, I’m reading it.”

Jack held out the box of éclairs. “I’ll trade you.”

“No.”

“Take your pick!”

Phryne shook her head and continued her reading. 

“Miss Fisher, this is ridiculous. That is _my_ file of witness statements and I should not have to bargain with you to get them back.”

“Then you shouldn’t have been so stingy at the bakery.”

“How was I stingy?”

“You didn’t ask if I wanted anything.”

“I most certainly _did_ ask, and you neglected to answer because you were too busy ogling the handsome pastry chef behind the counter.” Jack snatched the folder from her and slapped a chocolate éclair into her hand. “You need to work on your focus,” he grinned.


	524. Picture Book

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It looks like you’re in trouble there. Can I help?” (Bert & Aunt Prudence) Requested by firesign23.

“Need a hand, Mrs. S.?”

Prudence started, and the large pasteboard box she had been struggling to heave up onto the highest shelf in the closet nearly came crashing down on her head. “I… th-thank you, Albert, yes.”

She stepped back and smoothed her wide lace collar nervously, while Bert readjusted the box and stooped to fetch a small picture book that had fallen off the top of the pile. “You sure you want to pack all of this away?”

“Yes, I’m quite sure,” Prudence snapped, turning away. 

Bert pressed his lips together, then shoved the box towards the back of the closet. “No worries, then. You won’t be able t’ get any of that stuff down again any time soon.”


	525. Eerie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew…then it was too high.” (Terry Pratchett, _Night Watch_ ) (Phryne/Jack) Requested by firesign23.
> 
> Yet another Alien!Jack request... I dunno why this got so popular. :P

"I think... I think I saw them once," Jack admitted, out of the blue one night, as they stood on the widow's walk, looking up at the stars that hung low over St. Kilda. 

"Saw who?" Phryne asked, very gently, so as not to frighten him off the subject. It was rare for him to bring it up on his own. 

"My people. The people I came from. I saw them once."

"When?"

"Nineteen-seventeen. It was during a lull... we had orders to go over the top the next day. I was on watch and I saw..." Jack hunted painfully for words. "I can't explain it. I just _felt_ the presence of something, someone, familiar, and then I saw these figures, standing in No Man's Land."

"It wasn't all that uncommon to see eerie figures in No Man's Land at night," Phryne said, with a dark sort of smile.

"No." Jack shuddered. "But this was difficult. I saw them, and I felt like they were calling to me. To join them, to... go home."

Phryne gently pressed her arm to his, as they stood leaning on the wrought iron railing. "Why didn't you?" 

"I wanted to... God, how I wanted." Jack's voice was gruff with memories. "But I couldn't. We were going over the top in the morning, and my men needed me."


	526. Heat Stroke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Unusual weather we’re having, isn’t it?” (Jack/Lyle) Requested by meldanya44. Rated E.
> 
> I just write what y'all ask for, don't @ me.

It was too damned hot. Lyle had lost track of how many times he'd thought that so far, this summer. Between the weather and Jack bloody Robinson, it had been a lot. And sometimes, as now, the only remedy for heat stroke induced by a far too attractive detective-inspector wandering about the garden barefoot in his trousers and singlet, with his perfect hair rumpled and the sweat beading on his brow, was to drag him into the house, shove him up against a wall, rip open his fly, and drop to one's knees to swallow his cock whole, drinking in Jack's sudden hoarse cries and all the while grumbling to oneself about how it damned well just wasn't _fair_.


	527. Tragedy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “‘To sleep, perchance to…’” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by heavyheadedgal.
> 
> Jack’s POV during the wake-up scene in “Death-Defying Feats”.

He'd never been partial to Shakespeare's tragedies -- too much tragedy in his own life to be fond even of the Bard's unhappy endings -- but he knew them backwards and forwards, even if they weren't his first choice for timely quotations. Still, it annoyed Jack whenever he happened to wake up from a dream inspired by a Shakespearean tragedy, and _especially_ when it was Hamlet. And this had been a bizarre dream where he had been playing the part of Hamlet... and Ophelia... and Polonius... damned near every role in the play.

No wonder he'd woken up with a throbbing headache and a mouth that felt like it was full of cotton wool. 

Groggily, he supposed he should have been grateful that his brain hadn't cast Miss Fisher as Ophelia... or perhaps even worse, as Gertrude. 

_So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,_   
_Will sate itself in a celestial bed..._

Bed... bed?

Jack looked down and realized just whose bed he was in.


	528. Appealing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “So, I found this waterfall…” (Hugh/Dot) Requested by rockthistowninsideout.

Dot eyed the river doubtfully. "It looks awfully deep," she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was wearing a pair of her new husband's waders and although she had managed to roll the stiff tops down, her feet were still lost in them. 

Hugh was already standing in the river, damp and grinning as he flicked his fishing line back and forth. Behind him, the little waterfall made a very nice backdrop for his broad bare shoulders. "It's not deep at all, Dottie, come on!"

She studied the very appealing picture he made, with the water sparkling in his hair, and then sat down on the bank. "Actually, Hugh, I think I'll stay right here."


	529. Backtrack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This isn’t a playground.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by sheldonslog.

Sometimes Jack loses her on walks in the city, and when he backtracks and finds her again, she's often standing in front of an alley, usually one filled with trash, discarded washboards and battered old tin bathtubs, and bits of dirty cloth, broom handles, bottles, assorted rubbish. And he knows she's thinking of her sister. 

"When you're very young," she says softly, her eyes far away, "you don't notice things like poverty. Especially when everyone else in your neighborhood is just as badly off. Not until you're a bit older and learn to look beyond your next meal and finishing your homework so you can go play. You see an old tin tub full of holes, and it becomes a pirate ship. And Janey and I would pretend to sail away."

And all Jack can do is clasp Phryne's shoulder, and try to bring her back to the present and the case at hand.


	530. Creep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my God. You’re in love with her.” (Mac & Jack) Requested by firesign23.

Jack took the glass that Mac slid across the desk and raised it in a half-hearted little toast before drinking. Mac sloshed some whisky into her own tumbler and knocked it back without so much as a grimace. 

"I didn't realize that you and Miss Fisher had been... intimate," said Jack, after an uncomfortable silence that seemed to stretch on for years. 

"It's not the sort of thing that usually comes up over tea and biscuits," Mac answered. She fiddled with her glass a bit and then reached for the bottle again. 

"How's Rosie?"

"Doing fine. She'll be pleased you asked after her." 

Jack managed a half-smile. It was all he could muster, with the hot creep of embarrassment rising up the back of his neck. 

"Look, Jack," the doctor said at last, "just because we've slept with the same women doesn't mean this has to be awkward."

"Oh no. No, of course not."

But it _was_ awkward, all the same.


	531. Fraught

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m so sorry for your loss.” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.

Jack's bowed head and tense shoulders told the whole story, without him needing to say a word. Phryne agonized over what to say. It was a fraught situation. This had been on his mind for weeks, and the dread of what might happen if things went wrong had haunted him. She knew she had to tread delicately. 

"Jack, darling, I... it really isn't everyone who can manage a soufflé. Even Mr. Butler only manages to keep his from falling about half the time."

Then she held her breath. 

Finally, Jack sighed. "Well, if this dish defeats even the great Tobias Butler, I can't be _too_ upset."


	532. Two-Timing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Do you ever think we should stop doing this?” (Jack/Rosie) Requested by meldanya44, who asked for reconciled Jack/Rosie domesticity.

"We really need to start telling people that we're back together," Rosie scolded him, sotto voce, as they walked down the street arm-in-arm towards the police station. "Your officers all look like they're going to explode from curiosity."

"Good," said Jack, not at all perturbed. "That'll teach them not to place bets on my personal life."

"...You're joking."

"There's a pool going about whether or not you and Miss Fisher will get into some sort of cat-fight when she finds out I'm 'two-timing' her."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake..." Rosie let out a deep sigh that turned into a giggle half-way. "Maybe you should place a bet of your own. I'm sure Phryne and I could manage _something_..."

"Well, if you and she were to get into some sort of argument on, oh, May twenty-second, I'd be happy to split the proceeds with you..."


	533. Miles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Just a little farther…” (Phryne/Jack) Requested by omgimsarahtoo.
> 
> Time to bring this project to a well-deserved close. Thank you to everyone who read, commented, and stuck around for this long. ♥

“How far have we gone?” Jack mumbled, rousing just enough to ask the question. 

Phryne didn’t take her eyes from the road, or what little of the road she could see, in the illumination of the headlights. “About fifty miles since we filled the tank.”

“How far do we have to go?”

“Quite a way.” She reached over and squeezed his leg gently. “Go back to sleep, Jack. We’ve miles to go.”

“Miles to go… mmm… tha’s a poem from somewhere.” His eyes slid closed again. “Miles to go… together…”

Phryne’s red lips twitched in a fond little smile. “As always, Jack. As always.”


End file.
